


Going Native

by DartzIRL



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Gen, Self-Insert, insecurity!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 08:21:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16698835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DartzIRL/pseuds/DartzIRL
Summary: You know that fic where the self insert swings in, solves all the problems, deals with the devil and wins, and is universally trusted, beloved and believed by all...This is not that fic.





	1. Who wants to be a Hero?

“Good Morning, _Shadow Stalker._ ”

That rabbit-in-headlights look never failed to make my day. Sometimes she got violent, sometimes she just wondered _how_ , most times, her mouth would goldfish open, while the others stood and stared.

I grasped my Power and stepped back before she composed herself, and in a flash it'd never happened. Lost to deadtime.

Hess hurried passed, the terrible trio already late for the daily lunchtime struggle session. Whether today would be the day or not, I didn't know. I knew we were in the run-up to it.

My locker stood a metaphor for myself; a bit of a bloody mess.  It meant a struggle to find the notebook I needed before the bell rang.

It meant being still focused on a cubic metre of school-rubbish, crash helmet and riding gear when something slammed into the side of my head, knocking me onto my arse. A football bounced off the tiled floor beside me, followed by laughter.

“Hah!, Nice catch, _Mick_.”

“Yeah man, right in the head and like, BAM! on his ass!”

Fuck. My turn today. I didn't know their names. I couldn't be arsed learning. One year held-back, a few centimetres taller, and the four of them walked around like they owned the place.

Sighing, I stepped back, and caught the football on the second try.

“Hey, nice catch, man...”

“Try make it hard next time.” I passed it back with a gentle kick. It wasn't too different from a rugby ball. They'd find someone else to bother today, and that's good enough for me.

Butterflies are amazing creatures. Amazing the difference they make. The formed the single bit that flipped between a few moments of respect and few moments ridicule.

Ironic. I'd joined in the ranks of 'normal kid' now. Nobody special,. Bit tall. Bit on the larger side. Maybe a bit quiet, but understandable really. Just one of hundreds looking to keep their head down and just do their time in Winslow in peace. Having a little experience helped.

Who am I?

I am not the protagonist you were expecting. I am not even a background character.

Thankfully.

The bell rang and the bustle began. Taking the back stairs to class let me avoid the worst of the crush - a path I knew would take me past the girl's bathroom and the possibility that today would be the day.

I considered turning back and taking the longer way around, chancing the crowd just so I could avoid _knowing._ I choose the risk of knowing over the risk of getting blindsided again. Every hair prickled on my neck as I reached the top of the stairs. My knees ached from the strain of the climb.

I stopped for a moment, regaining a little strength before forcing myself to walk through the corridor.

I saw Taylor backed into the space between two rows of lockers, surrounded by the three of them. What a perverse relief. At least one more day to go.

She saw me.

She looked right at me.

Why do you walk past?

Just like everyone else. I did nothing. Just like everyone else, I had my own crosses to bear and Taylor couldn’t be one of them.

The sound of footsteps running up behind me sent a quick jolt of adrenaline into my veins.

“Hey! Hold up, Ian?”

I glanced back, releasing the fist I'd made with my left hand. Once beaten, twice shy.

“Damien. What's up?”

Damien stood shorter than me, with fair shaggy hair like an escapee from a Spielberg film grown up a few years, but a couple of ratchets up on the fitness level to the point where he might've been able to take me in a fight if I didn't have my advantage.

“Airplanes. Airplanes are up.”

Most of all however, he was a decent human being. Even if the pun obliged me to roll my eyes.

“You got the assignment?”

“Sure thing. Solid B grade.” He slipped few white sheets from his backpack, offering them to me. Freshly printed on crisp paper, _On Parahuman Society and its Future_. “And a summary clipped to the back incase you get asked any questions.”

I took it with a cheeky smile, leafing through it quickly to make sure I hadn't been handed something like the Unabomber manifesto as a prank. Especially with that title.

“Grand...” I said.

“Got my Math?”

You don't get anything for free in this world.

“One A-rated maths assignment.”

Easier for me to do. Twenty minutes at a computer, not that I told him that. Then print.

“Boys,”

Cursing through my teeth, I recognised the voice immediately. Step back....

Footsteps jogged up from behind me. This time, I expected them.

“Hey, hold up, Ian?”

“Damien, What's up?”

“Glory Girl, man?”

Butterflies? Time to change things a little. Probably not the best idea to trade papers in the middle of the corridor. Well, do we look like experienced drug dealers?

“Poster get delivered?”

“Finally!” he grinned.

“That's a glorious poster.”

“Damn fine,” his grin broadened.

Oh yes. That's what I liked about being sixteen again. The simple pleasures.

“Boys?”

Gladly. As welcome as a fart in a space station.

“What?” Damien was fast off the draw.

“We weren't doing nothing.” I tried not to sound like a whining kid. Naturally, that made it plain as day that we weren't doing _something_. Or something like that.

“Bags. Let's see what you've got in there.” He smiled like our best friend as he screwed us over.

I felt my power latch back into place. A moment later, became fifteen seconds earlier.

“Glory Girl man,” said Damien, grinning.

“Hey, ah, can we go a different way?”

He blinked owlishly, caught off-guard by the sudden swerve. “We'll be late.”

I didn't care. “Better a tardy than getting caught with this. Trust me. There's a trap ahead.” I pointed at an office door.

“Alright,” he breathed. “You've been right about stuff like this before.”

Both of us turned to take the long way around, back past Taylor and Friends, down the stairs, then back up the middle with the rest of the crush. My knees complained at the rush, but better some aches than getting busted.

“Boys! Stop right there.”

“Fuck’s sake!” Everyone flinched, my voice carrying down the corridor.

Kobayashi Maru. Fifteen seconds didn't help when your downfall had been set up minutes earlier.

“There's only one person in this school who uses partial differential equations in High School math, or so I'm told. And that same person doesn't use American English spellings in his essays.

And wasn't he so sickeningly pleased with himself?

Damien deflated.

“Fuck’s sake.” I admit it. I am not an eloquent man.

With hindsight, it should have been obvious. It mightn't have been the worst injustice in Winslow High, but fuck me if it didn't annoy.

-

I skated through the rest of the morning.

Industrial arts gave me something to focus on, to let the frustration cool, running parts off on the engine lathe for the class. The machine let me be myself, to be who I used to be for a few minutes at least.

The fun lasted until someone branded a kid with a file that'd been heated to somewhere between bloody-hot and absolute glowing hellfire with a gas torch meaning the rest of us spent the last half of the session sitting in stone silence while the teacher glared at us.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

The scream chilled me to the bone.

After a hungry hour’s wait wishing I could either be eating, or back on the machine, lunchtime finally arrived. I took laser aim at the food, forgetting everything else.

The habit refused to die.

I bobbed and weaved through the queue, earning a few curses in the process as I grabbed my fair share. Then a little extra, with a few cartons of froot-joose stuffed in the pockets of my jacket for later.

Another habit which refused to die.

I'd half finished before Damien sat down on the bench opposite, dropping his tray down on the table. My eyes fell on the pea that rolled free from the edge. I didn't even look up at him, jealously pulling my own tray towards myself. I didn't breath. I didn't speak.

“I don't know how you eat that shit,” he said.

I swallowed, taking a breath while I loaded my plastic fork with as much as it'd carry.

“Still better than rations,” I said, filling my mouth with another slab of mystery meat and synthetic mashed potato. “First lesson for survival.” I smiled. “Food and water.”

He prodded at the mystery meat with his fork, stirring it around its bath of brown slime and onion.

“I don't think this qualifies as food.”

“If you’re hungry enough, everything is food.”

I didn't even flinch as I scooped up another mouthful. It reminded me of dogfood. It tasted little better. You learned not to chew.

“I’ve never been that hungry,”

A thought rushed in with a vicious sting. You’re going to find out soon enough.

I filled my mouth with a sliver of meat before any words could escape. The weight of what that meant, fell on my shoulders, stirring things up from the back of my mind that I really didn’t want in the front.

Damien stopped poking at the slab of meat.

“You okay?”

I looked up at him. Thanks for asking.

“It’s alright,” I forced myself to say.

It didn’t feel alright. I couldn’t tell myself how it felt. Just that it _did_ , sitting heavy like fat on the brain.

Six weeks to go. Tension rippled through my body.

For a moment it seemed crazy that life continued as normal, that nobody _knew_ even though nobody could know. People queued for food, grabbing buns, butter and a quick chat. Insults were traded. Fights arranged. Girls babbled together, swarming some poor unfortunate who’d been served the white bread sandwich of poverty because her parents hadn’t kept her lunch account current.

Fuck’s sake.

“Aki’s in the library, I think,” Damien said, still poking at the meat with his plastic fork. “She didn’t get her stuff finished last night so she’s catching up.”

Thanks. I took a breath. The weight didn’t leave.

“She know we got caught?” I said, putting my thoughts to more practical things.

“I messaged her,” he said, flipping the screen open on his phone to show me. “Roberta and Alan got their stuff handed off too.”

“Grand,” I breathed. I threw a quick look over my shoulder. Nobody for now. Getting nabbed earlier had raised my paranoia – even if the noise of the cafeteria could swallow everything we said.

“They’ll be watching me us for a while,” he said, before finally plucking up the courage to take a bite. Hunger won out in the end.

My hand swirled the last morsel of meat through the jellied gravy, mopping up the remains

“Aki’ won’t be able to keep up on her own.”

“Not for long,” he said through a full mouth. “In a few weeks it’ll be over anyway.”

I looked up from my plate, feeling my appetite vanish. Fuck’s sake.

After a moment, he managed to swallow. “Yeah, Summer can’t come fast enough.”

Six weeks to go.

\--

Given the choice between taking two full week's detention and re-doing two assignments, or taking a taking a day and touting on all those involved, I took the weeks. Buy the ticket, take the ride. No sympathy for the devil as a good man once said. Take a seat in a full detention hall and take the time to get my homework done, then get the guts of the assignment for World Affairs done before I got bored.

My hand rubbed at the brace on my right knee. A long day had started it aching again.

The assignment on the desk in front of me proved one simple thing.

_Worm_ was a story. This was a _World._

By the time detention ended, the school had emptied. Only the last few extra-curricular stragglers and the janitor remained, leaving an eerie pine-scented quiet behind.

Empty schools always felt strange.

A crash helmet, some armour and a spare key waited in my locker. My bike had been parked where the bicycles were kept; a four-hundred-dollar rusty shed of a Honda that pre-dated parahumanity and came with a registration plate ominous enough that nobody even thought about stealing it.

The alarm on my phone reminded me that work started in an hour. A message, offered something more interesting than responsibility.

_Damo: With Aki at Brokton Knights. They let you out yet?_

The Honda carried me to the Brockton Knight's Arcade, lit up in glorious cyberpunk neon purples, pinks and blues. A few of the tubes had broken, but I thought that just added to the effect. It wouldn’t look right to be clean.  I chained the bike up outside, then stuck it in third gear and pulled the lever off.

I marched inside with my helmet hung off my belt feeling like a hero. Heavy crash-boots and armoured leather makes anyone feel invincible. Inside, the electric heat embraced me, the scent of bubblegum and warm electronics crawling up my nose.

I doubted the place had changed much in two decades, except for the addition of some chattering pachinko machines to the usual chiptune electronics and thrumming music piped in from overhead.

The people I searched for waited in the back, taking up two of six seats at an old Villains and Vigilantes booth. I preferred Space Opera, but being late came with a penalty – the game had been chosen for me.

“Hey, he finally shows up,” said Damien, waving me over.

“Hi!” Akiko bubbled. Say what you want about said-bookism, but I wouldn't be surprised if she triggered with the Power to make little candy love-hearts start popping into the air around her.

Akiko revelled in being the stereotype of every Japanese schoolgirl you ever saw. Shorter than average, with jet-black hair that seemed to have been varnished dead straight, broad cheeked and obsessed with the Kitty to the point where her hair at been speckled by a dozen jolly-rancher coloured flecks.  She proudly wore a DDID tattoo on her arm – not a real one, of course.

I liked her.

That's exactly what I meant to say and no more.

I took breath, dropping any mental baggage behind the chair. “Andy and Roberta not here yet?”

“Called ahead. Said they were busy.”

“Within five minutes of each other, too.”

“Shared study time?”

“I didn't say that...” The smirk on her lips said it far better.

“So, loser pays?” Damien suggested.

“Christ man, I can't afford to lose.”

“You can afford to go hungry then?”

I could've used my power to win every game, but I lost. It's easier to lose to friends. And more fun. The three of us laughed and had a great time. I could go into the minutiae of it, but there's no point. We were just three teenagers being friends.

Time melted away around us through match after match

On my first run through the school mill, I missed out on this sort of thing. My own fault really, I made the mistake of keeping too much to myself, of living in the grey box and just doing the work, getting the grades and grinding forward.

I suppose that's the advantage of experience. I could take a different route. I could choose to be happy, rather than do what the responsible ones called the right thing.

Akiko's phone chimed three times bringing the game to an end. She glanced at her, her smile dissolving in a instant, like she'd been told a grandparent had died or something. She scratched at the back of her neck, glancing between the both of us like she expected us to jump on her or something.

“Something happen?” Me and Damien spoke at once, glanced at each other, then focused on her.

“ _Sumimasen, ehno.”_  She giggled, covering her mouth. “Ah...I got to go.” She jumped to her feet, fumbling her way out of the game booth, nearly tripping over her own feet “Talk tomorrow, bye!”

She made it halfway to the door before she finished speaking. Me and Damien watched her leave, breaking into a full-on run before the door'd even closed. “That's been happening a lot lately,” he said.

“I hadn't noticed,” I said.

“Do you notice anything?

I shrugged. “Probably some family thing.”

My phone picked the wrong moment to sound out the Imperial march, putting the final coup-de grace between the eyes of what'd been mostly a decent afternoon.

“You too!”

I glanced at the three-line screen, only needing to see where the message had come from to know it'd be a howler. A look at my watch confirmed it.

“The oulfella. I should've been at work an hour ago.”

“Shit,”

I borrowed one of Akiko's sayings. “Shikata Ga Nai.”

“Yeah. Shit happens.”

So it goes.  But for a crap start to the day, it hadn't turned out too bad, had it? Both of us stepped out into cold night air. A looming sky threatened rain in the morning, but for the time being it stayed dry. I'd get a bollocking from the oulfella when I got across town, but it felt like a fair price to pay.

Life's too short to miss out. I knew that too well.

“That's him!”

I turned my head towards the voice just in time to see the knife.

My Power pulled me out of the way.

\--

The first time I got myself into a fight, the idea of accidentally hurting someone frightened me more than getting hurt. Funny that. Most people are like that at the start. It got scrappy in the way children's fights usually did. Neither of us really hit that hard. It ended in tears, not blood. We were both only ten.

The second time, a world away, half-starved and struggling to walk, I grabbed a hurley and cracked it hard over a man’s skull.  I hit him so hard his legs folded beneath him, dropping his body to the ground with pale pink blood trickling from his eyes and ears.

Both of us hungry. But I had rations.

The third time happened a week before the Christmas break, in Winslow. A group of ABB kids jumped me. The first time, they caught me by surprise. One the second try, fighting back earned me a knife to the gut. Third time around, my hands found a fire extinguisher, and I knew who had the blade.

There’d been others – the usual scraps and punch ups that happened when teenagers had something to prove. I could hold my own end and not be an easy target. I’d lived in the City long enough to learn my lessons.

I knew what to do.

“Damien. Stop,” I said, my voice turning cold.

He laughed “What? You think Gladly's around the corner?”

The expression on my face stopped him dead in the street.

“Two gangers. Asians.”

Adrenaline echoes thrummed in my veins, my heart clenching. I took hold of my Power, clenching my hands into fists, then turned and walked in the other direction.

Easiest way to win. Either one of the dickheads could’ve had a gun in the back pocket, and Samuel Colt Trumped many Powers.

“Hey man, how could you know that?”  Damien paced after me.

My mind’s eye saw the Knife again. It saw teeth. It saw eyes staring at me. It could still see the green of their t-shirts. Two of them, one with a blade, the other with a bat. With each pace, the pieces fell into place.

They'd been waiting.

My mind locked.

Motherfucker.

“How do you know?”

I didn't answer.

“How do you always know?”

I could hear footsteps, rushing up behind. I knew who owned them. Every muscle in my body stretched taut.

I looked at him. He looked behind, his jaw dropping wide.

“How?” he breathed.

I ran, pushing my legs, buying seconds for my power to latch into place. The universe folded inside out, twisting and wrenching itself around me, snapping mind and body back in the blink of an eye.

I stopped dead, Damien walking on a few more steps before turning to face me.

“Hey man, what is it?”

“We're about to be attacked.”

Now I knew. We didn’t have a choice. Adrenaline raced in my veins.

He laughed. Again. “Get out!”

“Two Asians. Waiting for us.” I pointed to the alley.

He took a single, long breath, looking back over his shoulder to the alleyway. “Right.”

I had a Power. I could do it. I'd done it before. Maybe that's why. After so many months, a revenge attack?

“How do you always know this shit?” Damien asked me, again.

“Doesn't matter,” I said, through my teeth, hoping I wouldn't be heard. “We can't run. We have to fight.”

No other option. I tried to walk away, but they chased us. That proved it.  My fingers found a weapon in my pocket – an old Leatherman knockoff going rusty around the rivets. My sweaty palms fumbled on the metal grip, struggling to unfold it. The blade locked itself into place.

He stared at it.

“Surely. You can't be serious,”

“I am serious. And don't call me Shirley.”

Okay, that's just mandatory. Call me a moron, but bringing just my fist to a knife-fight seemed like a stupid thing to do. At least this gave me a chance. It made me feel better. Feel safer.

I had armour. I had a Power.

Damien sighed, resigning himself to it.

“Thanks mate,” I said, with a thin smile.

He snorted. “Fuck you man. If you get your dumb Irish ass kicked, I'll never pass math.”

I hugged the shopfronts on my left, remembering something I'd watched about Castles on Discovery Channel before it'd degenerated into inane reality TV.

On my side I had reach and strength. They had a blade and a baseball bat. I had a Power. I had a friend. My guts twisted themselves tight into a knot, every muscle in my body pulling to run away. They’d run us both down if I tried. I had to do this.  My fingers clenched tight on the grip-handle of the tool, skin blanching white.

I took one deep breath, letting the building adrenaline march me towards certain pain. I could take it. I could do it.

I glanced at Damien, his face glistening with nervous sweat. He seemed to grok my intent, stepping just ahead of me, both fists clenched. He'd get pasted if I got this wrong, but we could always try again.

I heard feet running.

I dived. We crashed into each other, my shoulder and fist burying themselves in someone's stomach. The shock of the impact numbed my fingers. Something bit at my wrist, before scraping off the armour in my jacket. My blade clattered free from my fingers as both of us rolled on the concrete. He grabbed. I punched. Something caught me in the face and rang my bell for a moment.

I scrambled to my feet while he clutched at his stomach, winded. My boot kicked his knife away, sending it skittering into the street.

Damien took a hard hit to the chest with the baseball bat, knocking him to the ground, with his arms around his guts, panting.

I struggled for breath, a deep ache thrumming inside my arm. Nothing serious. It didn’t feel serious. My hand clenched into a fist. No pain, only a strange tightness. Still OK. No need for my Power.

The second stood a few meters away from me. He matched me in height, both of us standing eye to eye. I knew I had a few kilos on him. He stared at me through strands of sweat-slick hair, both hands gripped tight on the bat's handle, ready to strike out on my skull.

Or something. Baseball's not my thing, alright?

He glanced down at his friend, still struggling to his feet.  “Fuckers knew we were there, Dai.”

Dai managed to groan, still with his hand pressed on his stomach, a dark patch spreading around his fingers. He panted for air, raising his hand _“Daijobou,”_ he managed to say, before dropping back down onto his face. He gasped for air, rolling onto his side.

His own knife must’ve got him somewhere in the scuffle.

I panted for breath, high on adrenaline. Every single bone in my body fizzed as I stood there, daring the one with the bat to make the first move. He stretched the bat towards me, aiming the tip of it at my head, telling me exactly what he planned.

My Power hummed, reminding me I still had the advantage.

His eyes went wide, like he'd sat on a live sparkplug. _Something_ slammed into him – causing him to step back. The bat dropped from his grip, cracking against the concrete of the path before bouncing back to knee-height. Both of us looked down to see a single arrow-bolt projecting from his chest – six inches of black carbon shaft topped with four white feathers.

“Cape...” he managed to slur as his eyes rolled up into the back of his head. His legs crumbled beneath him, his body dropping into a heap on the footpath.

“What?” I said.

Something clicked beside my ear, answering the question.

The thought to grab at it raced through my mind, chased by the idea that it might’ve been something far more dangerous than a switchblade.

Gun?

Common sense won. Slowly I turned, raising my hands. Something warm crawled along my arm, tickling under my jacket, running down to my shoulder.

Coming face to face with the Shiny End of a crossbow stood every hair in my body stand on end, especially when the person holding it hadn't been there a second ago.

_Shadow Stalker._

Sophia. Standing there, looking up at me through a scowling Ayn Rand mask. Blocked patterns on her cloak absorbed the outline of her body, making it hard to tell where she stopped, and fabric began.

“Stand down,” she ordered.

Pro-tip. Don't argue with the point of a crossbow.

I stood there, staring down at her. “They attacked us,” I said, trying not to sound like a petulant kid. Would my Power work before the tranquilliser took hold? Could I grab it?

I think I could take her.  

Damien, still struggling for breath, took one look at me and shook his head. Don’t even think about it.

“I saw,” _Shadow Stalker_ said, lowering the weapon. “Sit down against the wall and wait.”

The windowsill of a closed _Pollo's_ gave me a comfortable place to sit and cool off as the adrenaline wound down. Damien shuffled in beside me, with his arm around his stomach.

“Hah. That was lucky,” he wheezed, rubbing at his gut. “That's why Brockton is the best.”

I looked at him, but didn't feel the need to say anything else. My whole body had begun to shiver. Sweat stickied up my gloves, my right arm still half numb and thrumming from whatever hit it. A girl with a purple skunk-stripe in her hair grabbed a snapshot with her phone from the other side of the street, before running.

_Shadow Stalker_ zip tied each of the gangers with their arms behind their backs, not exactly being gentle about it either with a heavy stomp on the back to stretch their arms tight.

Dai struggled a little, earning a sigh and a bolt from a crossbow in the back for his trouble.

“Two gang members, ABB. Sycamore and Vale. Both have been tranquillized – one wounded. Two civilians - one wounded.”

She seemed to speak to herself, but I guessed her mask had some sort of intercom. I looked at Damien, still holding himself like his guts would spill if he let go.

“You alright?”

“She means you, dumbass. Your arm,”

He pointed a finger at it. A steady drip-drip flowed from the cuff, plashing in bright red spots on the concrete path. Three scarlet pools had formed, with another dribble running down my trouser leg. I held my arm in front of my face, watching the blood seep out from a split in the leather.

Something had grazed off the armour, slashed the jacket and nicked my arm deep enough to draw blood. Nothing serious. It didn't even hurt that much, not like the last time I'd been stabbed. I gripped it with my good hand, keeping the red in.

_Shadow Stalker_ watched me.

“It's not that bad,” I said, trying to wave her off.

The Ayn Rand mask said nothing, turning away from me.

“Fine,” Damien shrugged. “Bleed to death why don't you. Getting me into a stupid fight like this.”

“It couldn't be helped,” I said, looking at him.

“We could've run away.”

I rapped a knuckle on my braces. “Not very far,”

“I don’t have to outrun them, just you.”

Alright, maybe some Americans do understand the concept of black humour after all. I gave him a wry smile and a dig in the shoulder.

“Then how would you pass maths?”

Both of us laughed, dry as a desert.

I sat there shivering, cold fingers crawling all over my body as I watched _Shadow Stalker_ check both the gangers for weapons, cleaning them out. She found my multitool in the road. That metal face scowled at me and I grabbed for my power, just in case.

Bystanders snapped pictures. Probably tourists.

She marched over to me, boots stomping on concrete. I pushed myself to my feet, steadying myself with a hand on the steel shutter behind.

_Shadow Stalker_ offered it to me on an open palm. My Power hummed in the back of my mind, reminding me I had a way out

“Take it,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Before Armsmaster sees it.”

I blinked. What? That’s completely out of character.

“Tanks...”   That’s how I tended to pronounce ‘thanks’.

My blood slick fingers grabbed it from her hand, snapping the blade shut before she accused me of drawing it on her. The mask scowled, offering no warning of what happened next.

She stepped back, turned away, and left me standing there bemused, holding a bloody knife in my hand.

Apparently I'd arrived in the weird alternate version of Worm where Sophia isn't a complete bitch who takes pleasure in fucking everyone over, just because she can.

Knowing better than to look a gift horse in the mouth, I stuffed the tool into my back pocket and tried not to smile at her as I sat back down.

Damien nudged me from behind. “Dude, I read online that she's supposed to be a complete hardass.”

I gave a quick shrug. “I amn't complaining.”

The full weight of the day hung from my shoulders while I sat there staring at my arm and the patterns my own blood had left on the palm. I gripped my arm tighter, trying to stem the flow a little.

My ears thrummed, like an engine running inside my head. My eyes closed for a moment.

“Hey man,” Damien nudged me. I looked up.

Commander Riker of the Ultramarines chapter loomed in the traditional superhero power pose. The shock of his sudden teleportation left me open jawed, wondering how he’d managed it.

“What happened here?”

Damien got the jump on me. My mind just spun in neutral. “These two guys were waiting for us. They tried to jump us but we spotted them. It was self defense man.”

“You spotted them?”

“Ian did.”

Armsmaster looked at me. Son of a bitch. I charged up my best petulant teen glare and grabbed for the first answer I could think of.

“I was walking along. I saw them hide in the alley. I recognised them as Asians.”

He took exactly half a heartbeat to consider.

“You're lying.”

I took none.

“No I amn't!”

I stood up, almost managing to get eye-to-eye with him. The benefit of being a big Irish bastard. My legs went to jelly, but I caught myself with my good hand. No falling over drunk for me.

His head moved, glancing down at my arm, then at me. He raised his arm, tapping a single finger on the side of his visor.

“This tells me otherwise. Care to start with the truth?”

An angry growl rose out of my throat while I rifled through the back of my mind for anything that didn't end in 'Your under arrest' or 'Interested in Joining?'

No. Not joining with you.

My Power flickered, threatening to die out, before finally lurching to life. The world crunched and slurred around me, more a drunken stagger in time than a neat step, before crashing back into place with a jolt that left my head spinning.

I looked around, trying to place myself in the conversation.

“Well...”

Something I'd overheard one of the black lads say at school. Don't talk to those boys in blue. They ain't gonna ever help you.

Good advice.

“I take the Second.”

“You mean the Fifth,” he said.“Which only applies in cases where the answer might incriminate you.”

Damien nudged my shoulder. “Dude, don't be a dick. You'll get us into trouble.”

Armsmaster's the dick.

“Listen to your friend. We can sort this out here, but if you insist, we can take it to the local police station.”

“I saw them in the alley,” I said.

“How?”

“I had a way of seeing them.”

“A way?”

I have a fucking Power you thick-headed dope, but I don't want to say that out loud. Because then, what little bit of a life I've managed to put together and start actually enjoying will get pulled apart by you and your circus of caped insanity.

Because Sophia will know. You will know. I'll get the _Pitch._ I'll get pushed into wearing a cape because I know it'll make my family's life so much easier and then, hey, I'm the one fighting Skitter and friends and I really, really don't like the taste of cockroaches.

Fuck that.

'Um...” My mouth goldfished before my mind crashed into gear. “I saw them.”

“We've established that,” he said through his teeth. “I want to know how, when you would have been walking down a street with no clear view through any window.”

I watched him, rocking back and forth, blurring out of focus. How much did I have to drink?  I tried to breath, swallowing a cluster of deep, gasping breaths to clear my head. It failed.

I looked up at him, opened my mouth.

My Power triggered on its own, the universe collapsing around me in a dizzying whirl of colour and….

Something I just couldn’t remember.

 

\--

Waking up in an Emergency Ward is never fun. Either from the smell of antispetic, sick and blood, the chaos and cacophony surrounding a gunshot victime, or a prod not so gentle doctor reminding you that your dumb arse isn’t about to die anymore and you’re taking up a valuable bed, so hold still while she digs the needle in extra deep for the stitch to punctuate the point.

I’d gotten used to stitches.

My head still felt like an elephant had used it for a chair.

Laying back on the bed, I closed my eyes and waited, trying to block out the usual noise of a hospital emergency department.

“Could you not just let it go, Ian?”

My eyes shot open. The mammy had arrived by teleporter, standing beside my bed her face set into that professional, piercing scowl practiced by all Irish Mammies.

“What?”

“That bike's worth, what, four hundred dollars? The insurance on this alone is over two thousand. Is it really worth fighting?”

Money? She's more concerned with money? Caught on the hop, my mouth found a gear before my brain caught the look of pain on her face.

“How the fuck am I supposed to know they're not going to hurt me anyway?”

I stood up, staggered, then caught myself like a drunk,

“If you don't give them a reason to...” she stepped back and I see that shot of fear in her eyes.  I had a full head and shoulders on her in height. She breathed. “...your father was worried sick trying to call you and he still has to run the pub. Have you any idea what you're putting us through?”

Yeah. I do. I had the right of this.

“Ah for fuck's sake, leave it out. It's not my fault!”

“If it's not your fault, then why does it keep happening?”

“Because I'm in a shithole school in a shithole city on a shithole world!”

Silence. Only a few machines chirped. Yeah. I said it out loud. Someone mumbled a complaint

“But you don't have other children getting into fights... how many thousand of them are there now. And this is how many times?”

She got close to me. Almost close to tears. But I'm right. She cupped my hand in hers with the warmth only a mother could manage. I snatched it back. I'm right.

“They attacked me!”

I knew I'd lost when she just buried her face in the palm of her hands and shook her head slowly from side to side.. She'd never see it my way. I could probably have pretended to see it hers if I bothered my arse.

But I didn't.

I could've just used my Power to spare everyone the stress.

But I didn't.

Using my Power would be backing down.

“Let's just get you home.”

The cashier declined the debit card, so the bill found it's way towards inflating the family credit account. Outside, the night had gone stone cold, rain still threatening to roll in off the bay. I followed her across the car-park.

“My bike’s still at the arcade…”

“Get it tomorrow.”

I glared. She didn't even look at me.

A wood-panelled Buick LeSabre in Griswold Green awaited.

Everyone called it a heap of shit. I liked it. It had seats that just sort of absorbed your body and coddled, especially when the heater decided to work. The engine rumbled along far away in another world like something from an ocean liner while the suspension drifted along undisturbed by salt-eaten roads beneath.

Brockton rolled by the window, a vision into the Days of Pearly Spencer. As familiar as home now.  A month away from being washed away. My fingers drummed on the door.

_Over_ a month away, I reminded myself. Still time to run. Maybe I'd get lucky. I already had an alternate universe version of Sophia. This time around, how about Leviathan takes out other city? I'd like that.

Fuck Boston. Or Philadelphia. Or Portland.

Both of us sat there in silence, neither wanting to risk the first word. I looked at her. She looked at me, then looked away.

That hurt.

My Power bristled at the back of my mind, impotent now to save me from this fuckup, but still desperate to do something, a child in the back seat of my brain constantly nagging.

Can I do something? Can I do something? Can I do something?

The cut on my arm throbbed.  Gripping my hand into a fist proved nothing permanent had been damaged. Even the stitches had been more uncomfortable, than painful.

A familiar apartment block loomed into view – squat and stump like compared to the older steel cages around it - thick concrete columns framing sheets of glass. An half-rusted Civil Defense sign over the parking garage told the world of the shelter beneath. Just thinking about it made my blood run deathly cold, an ice-rain chill trickling down my spine.

We pulled in to our assigned parking spot and she shut down the car's engine. It dieseled over before finally settling down, leaving us in silence.

I reached for the doorhandle.

Locked. Trapped.

She breathed, a long draw filling her chest, the way all Mammies do, just to let you know how much pain and suffering you're causing them, giving time to brace for the guilt trip.

“Why does this keep happening? Is something wrong?”

I saw the look of pain in her eyes. I heard the strain in her voice. I tried the doorhandle again.

“You're not leaving this car until I get an answer.”

 

The mammy sat there, still waiting.

I thought I could tell her about my Power. But in fifteen seconds?

“Well?”

“If I didn't stand up for myself, I'd just become a target,” I said. “This place isn't like home.”

“No. It isn't.”  She shook her head. “But, I'm worried about you. This fighting was never like you, Ian.”

And where have I heard that before? Maybe something in dead time, maybe not. She tried to grab my hand, I pulled it back.

“I have to stand up for myself.”

“And make yourself a bigger target?”

“No, just....”

The words escaped me. How the fuck did this work?

“What?” she pushed.

“I amn't the same person I was a year ago.”

Fucking Understatement. She softened slightly.

“I know. But, this is a dangerous city. If this keeps happening, eventually it's going to go too far.”

She didn’t get it.

“It wasn't my Fault!”

In such tight confines, my voice resonated of the windows. Her skin bleached white in front of me.  My power latched back into place. Try again!

Back to the start, fifteen seconds earlier. I did what I should've done the first time. I looked her right in the eye and drew a long, deep breath.

“It's late. Can we talk about this tomorrow?”

“Alright. Tomorrow,”

With luck, once put on the long finger it'd get forgotten about.

\--

Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in a hard white light or black shadow. Green linoleum floors shimmered like shallow water, reflecting the light strips. Panels of concrete had been painted a clean white, then allowed to dirty. A sign on the wall pointed the way to the nearest staircase.

The lift had been closed for repairs again.

I followed the mammy up the concrete fire-stairs. Despite the argument in the car, she still waited to make sure I was OK. I wondered why, before remembering it hadn’t actually happened. Bitterness still simmered in the back of my mind.

She really didn’t get it.

My knees complained about the climb. My physio would complain about me working them so hard.

But I made it.

The mammy worked at the lock of a heavy firedoor. The number 47 in brass marked it as home. As close to home as I’d ever get.

The door’s hinges squeaked at complaint as the mammy pushed it open. I followed her in, pull the door shut behind it.

Archie had waited with as much patience as a black jack russel could manage. All the energy pent up during the day exploded out in an apoplexy of sound and joy. The little black Jack dog vibrated with joy, trying to jump up and kiss, sniff and taste where I’d been all day. The black nose found the bandages in my arm. The dog stopped, gazing up at me with brown eyes filled with absolute compassion. How dare someone hurt the feeder!

I rewarded his concern with a soothing ear-scratch.

The mammy busied herself in the kitchen, cleaning up the last of the night's cold dinner while I retreated to my fortress of solitude, accompanied by my trusty sidekick.

The door to my bedroom latched shut behind me. The dog scampered to the bed. I took a moment to gather myself exhaling a long breath before following him shedding my jacket and trousers, then boots, then disassembling the braces that kept my knees from fucking themselves while I walked.

A full-sized floor-to-ceiling window could've given me a commanding view of the city if we'd been higher than the fourth floor. Opposite, sat my bed with a stack of bookshelves above it. I had a desk-study with something that could've been called a mid-range computer four years ago and a wardrobe full of budget clothes.

Beside the PC, there were photographs of me, at a home I knew. My brother who I knew for a whole day before he drowned.. A class photo with nobody I recognised, but a uniform that I did. And dozen other frozen moments that'd never been mine but kept up the pretense.

They weren't the mother and father _I_ grew up with. This wasn’t my family. I wasn’t their son.

But they were. And I was.  Familiar enough to be a cruel reminder. Or a comfort, depending on the day.

To their pictures, I’d added others of my own.

One with Armsmaster, and me wearing the ‘Rescue Harness’ I’d built to earn a plastic trophy that sat on my desk, and the money to buy the bike. One on the observation deck of a building I once watched dissolve live on television on a Tuesday afternoon in September, looking out over a different Manhattan. A couple, with Damien and Akiko doing the things friends did in Brockton bay. One with Madison Clements, whom I think you know…

Real moments that I owned. I’d done that. I’d been there.

I felt _something_ but for the life if me I couldn’t place it. It just sat there, pressing in my mind. I sprawled myself on my bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to tease my mind apart and get to the heart of it.

Archie settled up on the bed at my feet and started licking at my toes. That dog pulled a smile to my lips, clearing my head for a moment.

I sat up, giving the dog a gentle scratch behind the ears. Alright. It's time to take a principled stand. I know I'll make some enemies with this, but I have to just outright say it. Cats suck. Cats look down on you. Dogs are awesome. Good Dogs are always glad to see you. And I know I've made mortal enemies, more than if I'd joined the Nine or shipped Sophie/Taylor....but I don't care.

A man has to have his principles.

A snort of a laugh earned me a puzzled look from the dog. My reflection in the window answered with a wry smile. It cleared the air and gave my mind a chance to breathe.

The gears of plot and time had begun to mesh around me. The story began in a matter of days. In a house not too far away, Taylor worked on her costume. The Undersiders had knocked over a casino four weeks ago. Glory Girl had been battering Empire thugs. Paige McBee stood trial on CNN. Speculation simmered on the wider web about when and where the next Endbringer would hit.

I knew all of it. I had it all worked out once.

I worked out all the little strands that led to a Bad End – the sort of stuff that frightened even the nightmares away and left me lying awake at night in a cold sweat. Make the wrong call and I'll be lucky if I die screaming.

Call me a coward if you want. You're not sitting here.

I couldn't avoid the end. I couldn't get off. But I could try enjoy the ride while it lasted. And make the best of what came after.

\---

I hated public transport.

Mitching from school on a Friday morning to go grab my bike gave me a chance to suffer Brockton Bay's public transit for the first time in months while I caught up on what the Mill had been doing.

Akiko; _Talk with Lisa at lunch._

Not Lisa Wilbourne. Lisa Banbridge - a girl who lived in Emma Barnes’ social orbit.

Me; _Better you than me_

Akiko; _She scam someone I think. We can use_

Something clicked.

Motherfucker.

I marked her in the schedule as taking Lisa's work, blocked out a day on our common calender when she couldn't work on anything else, then added some of her workload to my own, before offering the rest out to whomever was free.

Andy grabbed some of it for himself.

If you called Project Management an art, I could just about manage a few deviantart-worthy doodles in the corner of a napkin. That still put me ahead of the majority of kids out there when it came to running things.

In another life, I'd been an engineer, an apprentice of the Tao of Scotty. Now....

My phone chirped in my pocket.

Damo; _Yo buddy still alive?_

Me; _No._

Damo; _Cool. Ger Hero's Autograph._

Me; _Line's too long._

Damo; _Mayb u in hell?_

I looked out the window.

Me; _No. Not going to school yet_

From Damo; _Tell me about it. WA today >,<. _

Me: _Fuck no. Dodging that. See you lunchtime_

Damo; _Right man, lunch._

The bus stopped two blocks from where I'd parked the bike, leaving a short walk that took me past the spot where, last night, I'd been in a fight for my life. The footpath had been jetwashed clean of any blood. The _Pollo's_ from the night before had filled with tourists.

I found the bike sitting as I'd left it, unmolested by anyone. It came to life with unusual enthusiasm, both of us sputtering off in a blue haze. I raced through the streets, taking the long route back to the school, enjoying the morning air.

_Bet_ had changed me, I mused.

A sick part of my mind added 'for the better'. I had friends at school. I did things. I had motivation. Drive. Energy. Self-respect. How fucked up is it that?

The multiverse had a cruel sense of irony at the best of times.

So what? I had shit to do when I got there.

My phone buzzed in my pocket again. I pinned it against the handlebar with my clutch-hand. Few morons live long enough to master the art of texting while riding a motorcycle. Few Morons have a Power that lets them rewind until before they hit the truck...

Damo; _Assignment on Capes for WA. Easy_

Me; _SS and Defiant?_

Damo; U _mean Arsmaster, rite?_

Oops. Too late to take it back.

Me; _Sure._

Damo; _Effects of capes on world_

A red light gave me time to think.

Me; _Shouldnt be hard._

An assignment with a five-word answer. “And then things got worse.”

Another message came through.

Akiko; _Lisa Late. Makn me wait_

Me; _Be careful_

Something felt wrong about this, a spark deep inside lighting a smouldering dread. I twisted the throttle, racing to the school. Honestly, I expected some sort of ambush, a screw job of some sort to stick Akiko in the frame to earn brownie points with the administration or some other fucked up plan.

It wouldn't be the first time.

Tearing into the schoolyard at near 50 would earn me an expulsion if anyone reported it. So what? If the Mill got blown open I'd be fucked anyway.

I rode around the back of the school, skidding to a halt outside the rear entrance. What I saw there stopped me cold.

Taylor. Standing just outside the doorway, looking at me, a dozen different colours and flavours of soft-drink dripped from her body. A trail of sticky liquid followed her, snaking back into the building.. Her long hair had matted down onto her shoulders in tangles. Her clothes clung tight to her body, showing just how lean she was.

Like a drowned cat.

“Ah for fuck’s sake,” I managed to say. My Power fizzed at the edge of my mind, demanding to be triggered, just to keep me from realising it, to let me live the rest of the day without knowing.

Today's the day.

Gestation. Insinuation. Whichever one the fuck it'd been called. We'd crested the climb and the ride had begun. Leviathan. The Slaughterhouse. All of it started today, as inevitable as the sudden stop after a long fall.

She turned away, realising no help would come from me.

My Power fired.

Back to the start, Taylor Staring at me again. Maybe I could?

I couldn't.

Did I really want to be a part of _all that?_ I'd had enough of this shit, thank you very much, without taking on the responsibility for the entire goddamned planet. What if I give her a lift home and she changes her mind or something?

The chain gets broken. Bad End

My Power fizzled, reminding of the night it’d been born, in the midst of all those possibilities for fucking reality up. It churned itself, pressing inside my skull, begging to be let out.

She turned away, realising no help would come from me.

My Power fired.

And if I don't, what then? Up until this moment, I could be any kid in the universe. I could've been bystander #4, or some random piece of background colour – something that didn't matter. Something that either died or lived or, most likely, had the brains to get out of the city before it all went to hell.

Taking Taylor home would mean joining the narrative, joining the story, stepping up on to the dance floor and becoming a _part_ of it – fair game for everyone and everything and all those fucked up things that came with it.

Or just being a single tag on a page.

Again, Taylor turned away,

Again, I fired my Power.

I might've watched her a dozen times, each time coming to the realisation that no help would come. I saw it in her eyes. The guilt bit deeper each time around. Grinding me down. No matter how I felt, or what I thought about the future that wouldn’t be fixed anymore.

My Power betrayed me.

Even as I tried to talk myself out of it, it became inevitable. Just the two of us at the back of the school. Nobody watching. Nobody to jeer, or to pressurise. Nobody to laugh at Locker Girl or any of the other shit. Just me, her, and a decision to make.

Ultimately, something simpler than The Fate of the World made the decision - I just couldn't bring myself to be that much of a scumbag.

Nothing else mattered. None of her history or her future. Just how I felt right then.

It's easy to turn away in a crowd, but placed on the spot, on my own, with nobody to see but myself and her, I had no choice. This isn't a story with a narrative to protect. I'm here right now.

My Power fired one last time.

The world reset. Taylor looked at me. I spooled up the nerve, grabbing hold of reality. I knew what I could do. Nothing major. Nothing world shaking. But it'd make me feel better about myself.

“Hey Taylor!” I called out. “How're you getting home?”

She stopped. Officially, we had entered unknown territory.

“There's a bus,” she said through thin lips, caught off guard.

 

“Eh,” I nodded towards the pillion seat. “I can take you.”

 

Welp, I'm fucked.

\--

 


	2. "I had to go to Brockton Bay to write a Wormfic"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apocrypha, diagesis, and a disclaimer.

It's Saturday night and while the bar's are hopping and Brockton Bay's celebrating the weekend, Armsmaster's coming off Patrol.  
  
After nabbing a quick cup of tea (or coffee), he sits at his desk and starts with the night's paperwork. There's a lot of important stuff going on that isn't really worth my bothering over, all of it more important than one minor violent altercation interrupted by a Ward two days earlier that's finally come back to his desk, but _something_ nags him.  
  
Something bites.  
  
And he sits back and thinks about it; when had his lie detector last behaved like that? He sifts through the records because he's just that sort of meticulous person until he comes across the file he thought of – a note with the exact same malfunction.  
  
And there I am again.  
  
It's a video of me, taken by his helmet-cam while I'm explaining where I got the idea for the individual parts of my maneuver gear, how it all works.  
  
And in the middle of it, a jolt – a discontinuity. The indicators spike, then shift, like hitting a brick wall, then bouncing off in another direction. And again. Then a third time. Never quite tripping the 'Lie', but definitely with an undercurrent of deception.  
  
_Something_ happened, and that something _interests_ him.  
  
He makes some notes, certain it's not an equipment fault – he's a man who trusts his gear above all else. Something else has to be causing it. It's a problem, something that trips a switch in his mind. It's a problem. Problems must be solved.  
  
First, find the common factor.  
  
That one's obvious. That's me.  
  
He reaches for the obvious conclusion. Paddy's got a Power. But proving it, that's the trick. Curiosity burns. He has to know. Has to quantify.  
  
So he goes back to the crime scene. Photographs, at least. Transcripts. Police records.  
  
At first, it seems normal. Two gangers out to mug two teenagers out a little too late. A normal Thursday in Brockton Bay. Two teenagers defend themselves long enough for a Ward to appear. Violence happens. One of the kids takes a cut from one of the gangers who gets his own knife to the gut in response  
  
Only now, he has a report telling him that the blood doesn't match. Neither does the profile on blade match the wound.  
  
Is that it? He writes on a notepad;  
  
Victim B stabbed ABB2 in self defense? Pocketed knife? Afraid of punishment?  
  
Alright. The explanation makes sense. Still, one outstanding question remains.  
  
How did Victim B spot the attack?  
  
Even Shadow Stalker's report states he was unsighted – but reacted as if he'd known the attack was coming. He takes a sip of tea or coffee or whatever sort of beverage he likes late at night and it hits him, right in the face. After drying himself off, making sure it hadn't actually burned anywhere, and issuing a stern warning to Carlos and Chris, he gets back to work, squeezing their ball in his hand.  
  
The break clears his mind and he's probably secretly grateful for the interruption because it gives his brain the space to breath again. It grasps hold of an answer.  
  
Thinker. Precog. Low level. Not enough to avoid the fight, but enough to know it's coming. Enough to pre-empt. Now, that's a legal grey area. Maybe it'd make for leverage?  
  
He writes Thinker 2 into his notebook. Victim B becomes Rogue A – not enough information for a codename yet. It becomes the basis of a fresh file with my name on it. I'm on the radar and in the traffic pattern of the P-ENE.  
  
So, I've graduated from innocent bystander to potential recruit. Possible threat. Thinkers are in demand, and there's more than the Protectorate out there willing to recruit a white teenage male.  
  
Dragon interrupts with something more important. We're a month away from the next Endbringer and it's time to start thinking about the unthinkable again, just in case. They probably go over the armband designs and he takes notes, hacks together a quick prototype for himself and tests it for waterproofing, impact proofing and finally, EMP resistance. The results meet his satisfaction.  
  
He makes a note in his diary that'll probably prove blackly ironic in the near future.  
  
They have enough time for some awkwardly efficient friendly conversation before sleep finally claims him, at his desk.  
  
The next thing he knows is Hannah laughing at him as he comes around. It's late on Sunday – an hour before he's due to come back on shift. The teasing hurts. Even though he knows she doesn't _mean_ it mean it, it still gnaws at the back of his mind. A mix of jealousy and anguish, a mild sense of betrayal. He masters it by focusing on his day.  
  
He showers, cleans out his armour and tries his best to relax his mind to make up for the lost sleep.  
  
A report from Principal Blackwell crosses his desk. Terse. To the point. Suspiciously like all the others to the point that he suspects a xerox machine has been involved somewhere in the process. It's the Director's problem. And if she doesn't want to make a big deal of it, he doesn't have the time to. So long as it doesn't effect Shadow Stalker's fieldwork.  
  
For a break, he spends two hours in his workshop.  
  
Four hours later, he's rushing back to his desk for more paperwork, angry at getting lost in it again. Training scheduling. Patrols. Public relations. Intelligence briefings. It's a busy fucking day and none of the shit he wants to get done has happened yet. All of it has to be rushed through.  
  
Piggot fires a report back to him for an obvious error that should've been caught and he curses himself, loosing more time correcting it.  
  
Finally, halfway through his workday he's able to pick up where he left off Saturday night.  
  
Me.  
  
I'm really not worth his time - being so low-level – and he knows it - but a new rogue in town needs to be noted, analysed and recorded, just in case Rogue turns Villain. Trying to shed some workload, he passes a few files over to Dragon including my entry for Hero's Challenge and some intelligence on ABB activity including the possibility of retaliation against one of the small-time local Parahuman gangs - something to watch out for on patrol later that night.  
  
Dinner is skipped because Chris needs mentoring, and it's been blown off far too much lately.  
  
After an hour herding a teenage Tinker around a workshop– a job like herding explosive cats and about as thankless – it's back to the office where Hannah's coming off patrol. A pair of ABB underbosses in custody. One tourist rescued. And publicly too. It's good PR with CNN and the local Fox affiliate asking for interviews.  
  
Hannah has the whole night to get all the paperwork in order. This is what happened. This is where. This is how. This is how they were armed. This is what Power was used, and by whom. This is what she remembered happening, what was said. Evidence is recorded and collated by the administrators before a report is passed over to the local law enforcement. If it goes to trial, it'll have to go to court. I's had to be dotted, t's crossed – anything to avoid giving a lawyer a loophole.  
  
Hannah tried to chat, but he has to focus on work. Maybe he's a little too terse with his refusal and it bugs him for an hour or more, wondering what she made of it.  
  
A message from Dragon flashes up on his monitor. - another Leviathan update.  
  
After the recent incident in Boston, she'd put money on Beantown taking the hit this time. Right now, Brockton's peaceful. Armsmaster probably isn't sure whether to be disappointed or relived.  
  
Finally, with a few moments to spare as the sun goes, Dragon has one last thing to show – her analysis of the CAD plans for my maneuver gear, from the competition months before.  
  
Colin's Power lights up, sparking off all the all-to-obvious flaws in the design – so many things that could've been so much _better_ if he'd put his own hand to it – so much that it burns his brain to not be able to do anything about it. But a few parts catch his eye, like how the motors work 'inside out', pulling cooling air through themselves. The control system is rudimentary, but elegant.  
  
All in all, he writes it off as the work of a decent engineer. A good professional, a teenager with a talent, but nothing Parahuman. He thinks about making a Scotty reference, but doubts Dragon is old enough to get the joke. Best not to make her feel awkward.  
  
Dragon corrects him, painfully. Star Trek is a classic! It took time to catch it because it's subtle – masked by the fact that the builder seems to have actual experience with actual engineering.  
  
Tinker 3. That's her verdict. Allowing for Power, combined with a little natural skill.  
  
Tinker 2, he suggests. It's mostly natural, and maybe a secondary effect of the main power.  
  
She doesn't dispute it.  
  
Good. That's my problem sorted. Another file off the desk and onto Piggot's with his recommendation over what to do with me. Finished, gone. Now, back into his armour.  
  
Dragon voices her concern that he's overworking himself. He assures her, he'll be fine. Duty calls. Evil triumphs when good men do nothing and he's been doing nothing all day.  
  
It's Sunday Evening according to the dayclock in the workshop.  
  
Armsmaster's on the verge of going on patrol for the night, burned out, tired and ready to meet a teenage girl who doesn't quite look like a hero – who seems to have taken out one of the biggest villains in Brockton bay on her first night on the scene.  
  
How fucking galling would that be?  
  
Or not. I would guess on my part. Just something that fit the mood, my mind's eye of the rest of the world.  
  
Maybe that happened. Maybe not. Maybe something else other than some random teenager kept him busy on that night. I'll leave it up to you to decide.  
  
Technically, I suppose this might count as my first worm fanfic.  
  
Written;  
Apartment 32,  
Roxbury Building,  
Acacia Avenue,  
Brockton Bay,  
03807, NH  
  
Sunday April 10th, 2011, just before 10pm  
  
Worm is an original fiction by a gentleman using the online handle 'Wildbow'  
  
Find it, enjoy it,  
  
I'm just here, doing this thing in a quietly borrowed universe.  
  
.....I really hope Cauldron can't see my harddrive.  
  
As for my first fic, how'd I do?  
  
\--


	3. The Real Bubblegum Crisis.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning....

_ Worm _ was a story. This was a  _ World. _

From day zero I knew, I had to be here for a reason. It sounds almost ridiculous – bordering on solipsism, but it made the most sense. It explained everything.

I am the external force to the system.

People do not simply wake up as their younger, pointy-bearded self without a bloody good reason. With the shit I knew and the whole train of coincidences that led to me here, through Leviathan to getting off the Amtrak in Brockton Bay.

 

There had to be a fucking reason for it, right? For something like  _ this _ to happen.

 

Something, somewhere wanted me  _ here.  _ The only reason it could want me  _ here  _ with what I knew, was to save the world. It falls to me to right the wrongs and make the right shit happen when it needs to. I'm special. This is my reason for being here. It seemed logical. It made for a bloody handy crutch. Something to keep me going, in spite of this place.

I sat down, and worked at it. I worked out my own plan to save the world. – to do everything right first time.

 

I knew I'd forget things.

 

Not being a moron, I wrote it all down on my computer, straight off the top of my head. All the little details, the triggers, the dates, the pivotal moments. If you-know-who ever showed up, I'd even planned for that. I must've put down over a megabyte of notes – maybe more. Stuff I'd glanced at in WoG threads that'd never made it to fiction. Even a few fanfics came with a good ideas to write down and think about. Hours upon hours were poured in to plotting the right course, the right things to say or do, the right moment to give just that little nudge.

 

Because I couldn't afford to fuck this up.

 

Approach it as an engineering project, rather than a heroic one. Man, Materials, Method, Machine, Environment all done up in Herringbone diagram charting my own personal path to victory, all the little causes aiming towards each effect I wanted.

But  _ Worm _ was a story. This was a  _ World. _

And a million words couldn’t compare to the breadth and depth of an entire planet.

Something came up on the news. An anniversary in Boston. Remember Damsel of Distress? A one-note character who served just to suffer at the hands of the Nine? Not in reality.

She killed a fucking honest to Christ Kaiju in Boston.

So try a new plan. A different idea? Maybe try the You Know Who route for protection?

A young, upcoming hero given the name Teastailí triggered with the ability to move between doorframes, brought in a rogue, amnesiac Case 53 named Cichoil.  _ Na Fianna _ had already welcomed him with open arms.

I recognised the pattern.  My biggest asset stopped being an asset the moment I use it. After that, another nobody who just knows too much. One more nemesis to make a new hero look good.

 

I knew so little, because none of it mattered to the story of Taylor Hebert.

 

And what I had to do changed with everything I found out. What if I do this? What if I do that? Be careful, one slipup and the world ends. Try a new route. Same roadblock.

Or that one cape I didn’t think of.

Again.

Again.

 

Again.

 

Hammering my head against a brick wall. I know enough to know where I start. But what next? Try to befriend Taylor. Save her from the Locker. What now? What happens to the whole of the 20th century if someone trips Gavrilo Princip on his way to have a sandwich and stops some damn foolish thing in the Balkans?

How much inertia does history really have? Only time travellers know the truth for sure but I stared the question in the face. History is nothing but the unlikely sum of infinite coincidence, someone once said. I couldn't disagree. Reality is so unlikely.

Try again. What if I try  _ this _ ?

Watch it all fall apart. Again. The same problems – the same uncertainties. I stared at the future.

 

It all seemed so inevitable.

 

One more go.

 

Then shatter when the drive I had it all stored on hit the wall with a scream. I staggered to my feet. Months of work and sleepless nightmares crash to a head. I feel the break, hot like capsule filled with liquid had broken in the back my head. The string I'd hung my sanity to finally snapped. I stood, dazed for a moment, like my mind missed a gear. My thoughts caught up.

I ran from the apartment in a haze of a panic. One thought rang clear.

 

I'm done here.

 

More an impulse, than a solid phrase. It clanged around in the back of my mind. I'm leaving now. I took the lift to the top of the building, glaring at a scrawled swastika with the 14 words beneath it. Another reminder. Another reason to go. Even if the fuckin eejit who drew it did it backwards.

If I'm lucky, maybe I'll finally wake from the nightmare.

The roof was cold. The autumn rain bit. I paced around on the gravel, shivering. I stepped up once. Then talked myself down. Again, I stepped up. I talked myself down. In the back of my mind, it whispered and whirled around, spoken almost by the people I knew more than myself. I saw the result through their eyes.  


 

He jumped. He killed himself. He just hit the ground. Why. He jumped. He's after committing suicide. He just killed himself.

 

I caught the intruders. Alarmed, I walked towards the door. It felt inevitable. Irresistible. I stopped, before pacing again.

 

My whole body wrung itself taught, trying to tear itself apart. In the back of my head, a pulse threatened to become a headache. The busy sound of city traffic rose up from below, calling. I stepped up to the parapet for the third time and looked over.

 

Fifteen stories. Straight down.

 

It'd take 2.1 seconds to hit the ground. Give-or-take. I could do the sums in my head. Fuck me, I remember thinking.

 

Above, the sickly yellow cloud broke, the stars above watching me. For some broken reason, I found myself thinking about Taylor and the final line. We're all so small. I felt smaller still.   


 

He just jumped. He's falling. He killed himself. He's dead. He ended his life. He fell. He's gone. I could hear everyone say it. .

 

The void called and I answered. My feet moved. I felt the wind scream through my mind. Hard concrete rushed up to meet. Windows flashed by. I tumbled. I looked up. I reached back for the parapet

 

I'm going to die.

 

It rang clear as a church bell.

 

I've just killed myself.

 

I really don't want to die.

 

I Panic. I Scream. I reach out to try grab anything. Nothing but thin air find my fingers. Because I know – even if I couldn't save the world – I could've saved myself. I could've made it through everything. I could've been okay.

 

If only I...

 

_ Bang. _

 

It hits. Mid-thought, like lightning through the skull, shattering my mind and I see it as a train of cat-scan images, discrete slivers in 3 dimensions of something that dwarved time and space itself, making a full-on scream-through bombing run over the solar-system spalling shattered world-sized missiles off in glittering rain. One missile aims towards me, laser guided, zooming in like the last few seconds of a wartime missile-eye newscast and I could see myself looking up at the incoming hellfire like one of so many hapless feckers broadcast live to the world on CNN.

I know what's happening. I try to run. Too late.

 

Hey you, you poor dumb fuck, I choose you.

 

And then...

 

I'm back on the roof, stepping up to the parapet, feeling like I woke up from a nightmare. I stepped down, dazed and dizzy, my head ringing like a bell. Maybe I didn't...

My Power slammed home, alien energies bolting through my brain, filling my body and confirming everything I wished I didn't know. It didn't fade like a dream – it lingered like the worst nightmares, chiselled in the back of my mind.

 

I can still remember it.

 

Congratulations! You've just had your very own genuine Trigger Event.

 

_ Bet _ won without ever getting close to showing half of its worst. And  _ Bet _ rewarded me with one final insult. It welcomed me as its own child in the most complete way imaginable. It did it just to spite me. The one in ten-thousand roll that came up just for me.

That's what you earn for being arrogant enough to think it's all about you being the  _ one _ . I'm sorry if you were expecting a badass story, making deals for vials of awesome Power, or something deliciously disgusting. Like I said, I did it to myself.

Beaten, empty, exhausted, with nothing else to do, I stumbled back towards the lift. The same Swastika waited for me. A hot flash of anger and hard punch left a dent in the metal wall. I couldn't take it out on the universe, but I could annoy some Nazi somewhere.

I made it back to a cold and empty apartment.

The wreckage of the drive made its way to the bin, along with everything on it. The backups still lived on another drive. The idea to try again came to the front. The newborn Power simmering in my mind warned of the consequences.

I looked at what I’d have to do, and realised why each and every attempt would fail.  I couldn’t bring myself to be that much of a heartless scumbag – to make the hard, cold blooded choices.

My finger found the delete key.

My Power brought it all back again, more to prove that it could, than anything.

I deleted it all for the second time. Erased. Gone. Overwritten with zeros then formatted clean. 

I had time.

Time to make a start on being okay - to paraphrase. Time to make a good few months, a good two years and do what I  _ wanted _ , rather than getting to the end of it with a massive ball of stressful, terrified regrets Skitter-style.

 

So. I went to school. I made friends.

\--

 

“Thanks,” Taylor said.

Both of us waited for different shoes to drop. After a few moments without mysterious fedora-wearing visitors or a terrible threesome to give chase, we both assumed we’d get away with it. 

The world continued to turn. 

I gave her the usual run-through I gave all passengers on how not to get us both killed by gimballing around corners, and how to communicate over the noise of the engine. I waited for her to squelch into place on the slab of a passenger seat before booting the engine back to life.

She gripped tight as the bike lurched, steadied herself, then clung-on to the tail.

That's all it took. Nobody stopped me. Nobody stopped her.

The pair of us passed out of the school gates, took a right turn, and left the pages of the story for something new.

The idea shot through me like a bullet, turning up the heat on the idea simmering at the back of my mind. Tonight, the girl on the back of my bike would don the Cape for the first time, go bug a dragon, meet some new friends and be back home in time for breakfast.

Or something like that.

A tap on my shoulder told me to take the next right.

A quick detour to avoid a bollicking from the cops caused her to tense, expecting the worst for a few minutes, before we turned back to the main streets.

Another left. Another right. Riding like I carried a statue of glass on the back.

Back on track, she relaxed. The future sat on my pillion seat. Try not to Crash. Try not to get her arrested. The weight of the world hung of the back of my bike, clinging to my every thought and action. Every twist of the throttle could turn an apocalypse into a total annihilation.

Both of us sat on edge.

My fingers blanched white.

Another tap, another left onto Lord Street then a short sharp jerk on the throttle, followed by two rapid pats.

Stop.

Outside an old house that I knew probably had one gammy step, and which looked a lot more comfortable than our apartment. Her costume sat in the coal chute, waiting for tonight.

She stepped off the bike, taking a moment to fix her hair and glasses.

“Thanks,”Taylor said. “But I won't join your group.”

“I don't remember asking.”

“That's what everyone like you wants,” she said. Bug powers or what, I couldn't escape the fact that those eyes seemed to bore through my mind, like she could read my soul. Her eyes just seemed that much bigger than they should’ve been.  “That's the only reason people like you help anyone.”

“And what's that?”

“Because there's something in it for you.”

She stood and stared, letting the accusation bed in. A little gratitude wouldn't go amiss, I mean, I did just potentially enter the fucking firing line for you.

I clenched my hand on the handlebar, grounding the thought to earth.

“Y'know, maybe I was just trying not to be a complete shitehawk.” It came out with far more of a snap then a I wanted, but I didn't care. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Maybe you should head back to school before they start looking for you,”

“They won't give two wet shites,” I shrugged. “Probably glad to be rid of me.”

“That's nothing to be proud of.”

My Power fizzled in the back of my mind, offering me a way out.

I took it, took a breath and felt her step off the back of the bike.

“Thanks,”Taylor said, again. “But I won't join your group.”

What could I say, when she's already made her mind up about me.

“The least I could do after yesterday, that's all,”

Let's go with that. Let's leave it at that.

Again, her eyes studied, staring through me. I stared back, daring her to disagree.

“I'll see you around, so,” I said, throttling the bike before she had a chance.

My effort gained me a stained pillion seat, sticky leathers, the knowledge that Taylor probably didn't like me anyway, and the afternoon off school.

So not a complete bloody waste.

Honestly, what could I have done to make that go better? Even with my Power, I can't really manipulate people – I just don't have the skill. And what sort of sick fuck would I be to use what I knew about her to fuck with her head?

Who the fuck would do that, honestly?

Would you?

Maybe I could've gone all out, to make her like me, but honestly, that'd make me no better than fucking Emma. Just using private shite I know to really fuck with her.

Yeah. I'm done.

\--

This is the point where normally we'd get some sort of an interlude or something spoken in Taylor's voice that gave the second part of the Rashomon puzzle and told what she made of the whole experience, and what disastrous little breezes have or haven't been whipped up by my butterfly wings.

I guess you'll just have to live in the same suspense I did.

She didn't like me. Well, it's not like I expected anyone to fall madly in love over one random act of kindness.

At least now, I wouldn't get dragged into the whirlwind. My conscience had been soothed. My few moments of interaction with the plot had ended. I'd added maybe a footnote to Chapter One and maybe a new name to the taglist.

If I even deserved one.

My phone chimed in my pocket, bringing me back to the real world

Damo:  _ Wher u at? _

Me:  _ Lord Street _

Damo:  _ Whatre u doing there? _

Me:  _ Gave a friend a lift home _

Damo:  _ Weve Lisas stuff Its fuckin gonzo _

Me:  _ Really _

Damo:  _ mailed u Aki is all WTF _

Me: _ Grand. Will grab it in library. _

Damo:  _ Tell Aki, she wants to talk _

Me:  _ This might be too much trouble. _

Damo: _ Too late _

Fuck.

Me: _ Will talk later when I see it. _

It rang before I could put it back in my jacket pocket. Mam's number.

“Yeah, what do you want?”

“Ian, where are you?”

“At school?”

With surprisingly heavy traffic in the hallway.

“Then why did they call wondering where you are?”

Bollocks. I used my Power to turn my phone off before taking the call, rather than worry about dealing with that.

Why do I have to be the only student Winslow gives a shit about?

\--

What started as a well-intentioned visit to the library to catch up on schoolwork in peace and quiet quickly devolved into a load of bollocksing around on the internet about North American capes and their tendency to appropriate cape-names from European mythology – and then complain and branding when EU capes dipped into the same well.

In another window, I had the rest of the Mill in chat with the final answer to the Lisa question.

_ Akiko; She has our next quiz. _

_ Damo; Yep _

_ Me: Shit. _

_ Me; Did she say what she wanted with it? _

_ Akiko; Told me to figure it out myself. I could take the deal or leave it. _

_ Andy; What I want to know is how she got it? _

Akiko:  _ Not on netwrok _

_ Andy; And if we can make money out of it. _

_ Andy; Just cos I wont work for free.  _

_ Roberta; Not worth much? _

_ Akiko; Not worth anything. Most people in class passing fine. Just us nerds. _

So. What's her game? Why would she want to pass a class she didn't even take? Tattletale I amn't. I couldn't see the wood for the trees.

Me;  _ Do we still want to work with her? _

_ Me; Ive a veryu bad feeling about this. _

Akiko;.  _ Me too. _

_ Akiko; But I really need Gym credit. And cheer will do it. _

_ Andy; _ What happened to not wanting to work with her?

Akiko;  _ I think I figured out how to handle her _

Akiko;  _ I walked away. Told her No. She threatened me. _

_ Akiko;  I handled it. _

_ Damo; Cool. Mind me asking how? _

_ Akiko; Why? _

_ Damo; Dont want to piss the entire cheer off. _

_ Akiko; No No nothing like that. Just reminded her of some new facts she didnt know. _

_ Damo; Im intrigued _

_ Me; AOL! _

_ Roberta; ?? AOL? _

_ Me; Obscure meme, you wouldn't remember _

_ Akiko; Ive changed in a year. Thats all. _

_ Akiko;  I have this _

_ Me; If you want to do it. But this feels wrongness _

Stupid autocomplete.

_ Roberta; Your decision Akiko _

_ Akiko: I will be careful. _

_ Roberta: Good enough for me _

_ Damo: Your call Aki. _

_ Andy; Go for it. _

That decided that.

_ Damo; Bells ringing here, time to go. _

_ Me: Righto. Ill have everyones schedules before you get home. _

Roberta _ : Member. Im busy Thursday. _

They ran back to class. I sat back in my chair. Having a Power helped me become a sane and well-adjusted human being.

The thought brought a smile to my face as I wiled the last school hour away, browsing the list of traders at the Market today and what they sold. I found a new headlight,  a fresh set of contact points and two lightweight batteries – nothing that broke the bank, but useful nonetheless. All things that'd make the Honda a little bit happier.

All things that let me feel in control of my life again, like an adult.

I picked up my phone to give the trader a call, only to find I'd turned it off a few hours earlier. The phone took its time rebooting, with a half dozen voicemail messages waiting

All came from the same number. Bollocks. Back to being sixteen again. Biting the bullet, I called the Mammy. The phone didn't even ring once.

“Oh Jesus Ian, you're alright,”

Oops.

“Yeah, ran out of battery. Sorry”

“I was in the horrors trying to call you.” Just so I knew how much being so careless made her suffer. “God help me the school called and told me you never showed up and you left this morning and after last night I was almost ready to start calling the police have you any idea...”

It actually brought a guilty smile to my face.

“Mam, mam... I gave a friend a lift home. Some bullies doused her with minerals. I gave her a lift. That's all.

It had the virtue of being true. Except the friend part.

“You should've told me!”

“Yeah mam. I'll be going to the Market to find some bike parts before work.”

“Fine,” she sighed, making it clear again just how much extra suffering I'd caused. “Be back before six. Or your dinner will be in the dog.”

No matter what you do, an Irish mammy will always find a way to make you feel guilty for it.

\------

The sun began to slip behind Captain's Hill, pulling a long shadow across the city. Only the tops of the tallest buildings were still picked out by the burning sunset. A metaphor for the world at large? Something about it seemed familiar, like I'd heard it before.

I parked around the back of a single story concrete building that’d optimistically been named the Brockton Bay Brewing Company– a ripping backfire through a rusted exhaust disturbing the beer garden. I had the key for the cellar door on my keyring. It'd begun life as a Cold War bomb shelter, even with both hands, lifting it open could be tricky. Getting several centimetres of steel to shut without losing fingers -even with the help of some gas-sprung assistance - was an art.

Creaking wooden stairs lead me down into a harshly lit bunker filled with steaming stainless steel machinery. I couldn't help but feel a little spark of pride seeing it all gleaming in there under flourescent light.

“I'm here!” I called out, dropping my jacket on an old wooden stool.

“I heard,” the oulfella answered from the bar. “You're ten minutes late,”

“Had to go around a gang war.”

“Again?”

“Up at Sycamore. The Empire's fighting the Asians again.”

“So long as it stays over there.”

I climbed up the concrete stairs into the bar proper, the low humm of conversation and the scent of cool beer enveloping me, mingled with polished pine and stale farts. At six on a Wednesday evening, only a few were sipping away on a quiet pint after work. Otherwise, the bar was mostly empty.

The decor mixed Irish and American in almost equal parts, a few of the usual ornaments of an Irish pub mingling with that warm, almost wooden-cabin feel that the best American bars offered. Memories of home hung on the walls along with the usual neon tat every local bar had to rely on to set the mood. Less Cape-stuff than everywhere else in the Bay, which some people appreciated. A pool table earned me easy money for a few months before people got wise. 

The decorations from the annual Reinforcin' O' T'stereotypes had finally been taken down, save for one Leprechaun that'd hurl insults at people when given a 25 cent coin.  He sat at the end of the bar, handling tips. A deerslayer shotgun and a box of cartridges lived beneath it in easy reach in case something happened.

Like I said, equal parts Irish and America.

The oulfella stood beside the taps, more focused on achieving 'The Perfect Pour' than the fact that I'd come up from the cellar.  While sober or not watching the rugby, he was the quiet man, shorter than me but somehow managing to seem bigger, starting to get a little bit on the overweight side and with the hair greying. Not quite over the hill, but getting closer to the top with every Day. He still wore a scar under his eye from a hurling accident when he'd been my age.

“There's a problem with one of the controllers and the system went into alarm. If it's not fixed in an hour, we lose the whole brew.“

I'll bet you thought I served drinks. Yeah. No. That would be illegal, for a start.

“What sort of problem?”

“I don't know. It just shut down after giving a warning on one of the flowrates through the lower kieve. The system really needs better failure messages.”

He'd latched over into manager mode. That made me tech-support.

“I'm sorry it's not Aspentech,” I deadpanned.

“I didn't mean it like that,” he said, his tone softening as he looked at me for the first time. “Try fix it. Or at least get the beer moving. We lose a lot of money if you don't.”

I'll be honest, I loved doing this sort of thing. Problem solving. Not the silly sort of philosophical problems like saving a potential Hitler from the Titanic, but  _ practical _ problems. I loved making shit work.

At the apparent age of fifteen, I designed and built the entire fucking control system for the microbrewery. Guess what? In another life, control systems and datalogging and renewable energies had been my profession.  It provided stainless steel proof that everything I knew had been  _ real  _ and that this had all really happened to me. It'd probably all be gone in a month's time....

That hit me like a brick. Take a deep breath.

I took ten minutes outside getting some evening air to clear my mind, sitting on the open cellar door. Everywhere else had closed down for the night, save for some of the other bar. A nightclub nearby vibrated the ground.

An airliner cruised overhead.

Beyond, the city lights washed out the majority of the stars, except for one brilliant point sailing high above. Not a shooting star or a space station, but something else.

A cold chill ran its fingers along my spine. I wondered if it watched me. I decided not to care.

I went back inside and fixed the problem – nothing more than a stuck valve asking for a system reset. No big deal. The beer must flow. Back upstairs to report my extreme success, I noticed Mr. Quinlan from Winslow had taken up his usual station propping up the bar.

The oulfella discussed the vagaries of the brewing process with a dockworker who dabbled in homebrew while Van Morrison played quietly on the stereo to provide background ambience.

All normal.

Until two men entered. I felt the hair on the back of my neck bristle, recognising both of them immediately; Ryan and Armin. A pair of fucking white skinheads in red-lace boots and leather jackets, grinning like they owned the place. Armin, with a face like a gammon ham, threatened to burst from his black jacket. Ryan had his skin drawn taught across his bones, like he hadn’t eaten in a month, stubble extruding from his chin under pressure.

Fucking stereotype Nazis. 

“Hey! Hey! It's that time of the month,” Ryan announced. Everyone's eyes went to him as Armin took up lookout by the door.

My eyes immediately went to the shotgun.

One of these days, BAM! Right in the face. I'd have a few seconds to enjoy it just before stepping back, and all they'd ever know of it would be the stupid grin I was wearing.

Because I fucking hated Nazis.

I hated the studded leather jackets they wore. I hated the  _ Sig _ runes. I hated the  _ Totenkopf _ tattoos that flashed up from under their sleeves. I hated their Fourteen Words and I hated how the oulfella just sighed and reached for the envelope he'd prepared earlier.

“A thousand dollars, all there,”

Ryan whipped it out of his hand, grinning like a farmer surveying some particularly fat livestock. I stood there like a boiler with a stuck safety valve, pressure building into the red.

“The Empire sends its thanks.”

The oulfella said nothing, just nodding submissively. Ryan looked at me.

“So, you're the boy who built that shiny stuff downstairs huh?  You some sort of tinker?”

Fuck. I felt myself step back. A footstep. Honestly, I didn't know. The idea of getting swallowed up by the Empire machinery sent an electric jolt of fear up my back. Yeah, I wouldn't go willingly, but that wouldn't stop them, would it? They'd just put the screws on people I might've cared about until I finally signed on the dotted line. And once they did that, they had me. Because nobody else would want anything to do with another fucking Nazi, would they?

That's how it worked. I might not be the sharpest, but I knew enough to know that giving them any idea of me having a power would end in a swastika-daubed hell for everyone.

So I said nothing. I just stared right through him, breathing through my nostrils.

“Kaiser said to look out for any tinkers, didn't he, Armin?”

“He did, Ryan. So, what's your power  _ boy _ ?”

His hand slipped inside his jacket, the threat implicit. Again, I thought about the shotgun. It seemed the fast way out.  The oulfella looked at me, fear in his eyes. Just like a year ago. The safety valve in my mind finally popped, and I knew exactly what I had to say.

“Yeah, I have a tinker power,” I said, forcing myself to breath. “It's a rare one too. It's called reading the fuckin' manuals and not being a gobshite.”

They both looked at each other, weighing that up. The whole bar went quiet. The oulfella shrank back, wringing both of his hands together. Yeah, that was exactly what he didn't want me to do. I didn't give a shit. If it went south, I could just undo it again. It'd hurt like hell, but I could do it. Let the steam out, but avoid the consequences. Come up with something smarter.

“I like you  _ boy _ ,” said Ryan, his grin broadening into something that almost savage. “That's why we ain't going to kick the shit out of you this time. C'mon Armin.”

“Right man, more cows to milk.”

The oulfella deflated audibly. I think the whole bar just let out the breath they'd been holding when the door closed behind them.

If they'd discovered my power, I'd've been fucked. Yet another reason not to get involved with anything, if I needed one. Chances were I wouldn't get the luxury of a group as 'pleasant' as the Undersiders if I did.

I glanced at the oulfella for a moment, before retreating downstairs to safety. Footsteps followed me

“Fighting in school is one thing. But for Christ's sakes Ian don't fuck with people who have guns.”

His voice rang of the walls, and I knew I'd hurt him bad. I'd frightened him, left him standing there powerless with the certain knowledge that I was about to get my head kicked in with nothing he could do about it.

“I just..... It's....”

I stepped back out of there rather than try explain it. Back up to the bar, right as the door closed and everyone was breathing their sigh of relief. I stood at the end of the bar, watching the oulfella stew, wanting to say something to me, but not wanting to do it in front of people.

He couldn't know I had a power.

He watched me, waiting for his chance, right up until someone asked him for another beer and it had to be pushed aside.

“I'm going home.” I said. “I have homework to finish.”

A cowardly white lie, but I didn’t care. He waved me off, more concerned with doing his job right than chasing after me to give me a howler. It'd be morning at least before I saw him again if I got out of there fast enough.

The Honda took four hard kicks before it finally fired up, spitting fire and rattling bones.

Still, riding back to the apartment through the 'bay gave peace. In a lot of ways, it wasn't that different from home.  Different gangs generated bomb threats that came with a little more destructive potential maybe, and the buildings downtown reached higher while the urban blight had a different cause, but both cities shared most of the same basic elements.

Gangs, drugs, a homeless problem and a good burger place that existed nowhere else.

One the worst of days, it mocked. On the best, it could almost be home.

Right now, it sat somewhere in between.

I thought it’d been a good day.

Aside from the Nazis.

\---

The radio woke me up in the morning, painfully early. Is there anything more frustrating that forgetting to unset your alarm for the weekend?

_ You're listening to Marty in the Morning, Brockton Bay Radio Nova on Saturday morning and it's the top of the hour and time for the news. _

_ This morning's headlines. Landslide in California. Heavy rain in the Los Angeles valley triggers a mudslide. Dozens still missing. Emergency services and California National Guard responding. Parahuman teams en-route. More information as we get it. _

_ The Dockworkers Association backing Mayor Christner's Project 2013 to rejuvenate the _

_ Docks promising tax breaks and city support to any new businesses setting up shop in the new renovations. _

_ Medhall Pharmaceuticals announces fifty jobs in an expansion of it's Brockton manufacturing facility, the news welcomed by the City Council. Chief Executive Max Anders affirmed his commitment to Brockton Bay's future in a public statement yesterday evening. _

_ And now with today's weather, Amy Wallis. And how does it look out there Amy? _

Click. The radio went silent.

Oops.

What more can you say when you've just doomed the world?

Maybe I worried about nothing. Maybe I got the date wrong. Maybe a single random act of kindness just fucked the world. Maybe if I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and said 'Bloody Contessa' three times, the answer would appear. Or a path to  _ something _ . How about a trade? Not for Power, or money or influence, but blissful ignorance.

Now what?

Fuck.

A morning shower cleared my head.  Maybe, in the last few months, I'd gotten stronger. Or something. I hope. I didn't spiral. I didn't crash. I stared it in the face and let myself understand. Grey eyes stared back at me through the mirror, framed by clammy strands of dark hair.

My fingers drummed on white porcelain. Only one idea came to mind.

“Easier said than done,” I said to myself.

A thump on the door snapped me out of it.

“Ian! Don't take all day in there.”

Back to the real world. The Mammy insisted.  Alright. Mam. I have a Power. I thought about it. Mam, I'm a Parahuman.  Hey, you'll never guess who got Powers...

They aren’t my real family and I still can't be that cruel to them.

Another hard thump shook the door. “I'm going to throw up!”

“You better hurry up,” the oulfella added, sounding more amused than concerned.

“Alright!”

I could go a couple of days without shaving. A quick axe-bath and a towel around the waist saw me ready to face the world. 

I slid the door open. A woman half my size shouldered me out of the way with enough force that I had to catch myself on the outside wall. The door slammed shut behind, biting at my heel.

The sound of early morning prayers before the white porcelain altar filled the apartment. The oulfella looked at me over the top of his tea mug.

“Your cooking?”

He calmly set his mug on the table, placing his glasses on top of his copy of  _ The Sun _ . “You might say that.” The sly expression on his face said far more than  _ that. _

One. Two. Three. Plink! The penny hit the floor so hard it bounced a caught me on the nose.

“FUCK!”

The dog barked an answer, before hiding under the table.

“Basically,” the oulfella said in a flat voice. I stood there watching the second head grow on his shoulder. “Well, we thought it was time we started looking to the future again.”   

My mouth outdragged a stalled brain. “Jesus Christ, in this town? With all the shit that's going to happen?”

How could anybody be so cruel to a child?

He looked through me, looking at another man and not a child. “It's time to move forward.   We thought about the future, when we had you and your brother.” He took a breath, placing his hands flat on the table. “We still want to try for that. Even here. Even knowing the risks.”

“Even if you  _ knew _ it would happen again?” It hissed through my teeth

“We thought about it.” He smiled at me, then nodded, confirming the worst. “Even if I knew, I'd still want to try.”

A brick to the face would've been more welcome. My power sparked, leaving it all to deadtime, dumping my back outside the bathroom door with the mammy puking last night's dinner down the jacks and me standing there struggling to get a hold of myself.

They thought it all through. They didn’t know. I wouldn’t ruin it by telling them.

“Yes?” the oulfella said, placing his copy of  _ The Sun _ on the table.

“Snapper?” I said.

“It was going to be a surprise.” He chuckled. “I'll have to talk with the bank during the week and maybe you might have to share a little of what you're earning, but it's about time.”

“Congratulations,”

What else could I say?  Of all the little things. That child deserved so much better than it'd ever get. The weight of the universe crushed until I thought my eyes would burst and my brains pop through my ears.

They didn't know. They wouldn't care if they did. They'd try anyway.

I needed space to think. With my braces snapped on beneath a pair of jeans, a cheap t-shirt that barely fit and a good pair of boots, I knew exactly where to find it.

“I'm going out,”

The Mammy didn't even look up at me from her bowl of cereal.

“Don't forget, physio appointment at one.”

As if I could, having to wear those poxy braces all the time.

The world might’ve been doomed – but life carried on in the meantime.

\--

A year ago, I wandered in a daze of disbelief as everything familiar disintegrated around me, replaced by cruel imitations and terrible reality. I stumbled through life, looking for something to hold on to, something to give me being here a purpose beyond Hah! Fuck You! You poor dumb fuck!

I found one.

That kept me going. It kept the aspidistra flying.

For a while.

Until I crash-landed.

At my lowest, face down in the dirt after the hardest of hard landings, I reached out. I found friends. I found a life.

When you get right down to it, I think that's the real difference between me and Taylor. Nobody kept me down. Nobody stopped me from crawling back out. People even offered a hand. 

A shallow swell lapped at the pilings for the boardwalk as I stared out over the water. Behind me, the first of the evening neon flickered to life, some shops closing for the day, other bars still just opening. The day shift of tourists gave way to the night shift of clubbers.

In a months' time, it would all be gone. All of it washed away. Now, it vibrated with life. Tourists snapped photographs of Protectorate headquarters as it shone against the darkness, searchlights on the derrick illuminating the bottoms of the clouds.

Damien nudged me on the shoulder “Jesus man, don't look so serious.”

“Just thinking,” I said, folding my arms and leaning down onto the wooden railing.

“About what?” He propped himself up with his elbow, looking at me. His denim jacket hung open to reveal a gaudy Miss Militia t-shirt.

“It's all going away, eventually.” I said, staring out into the night. “Endbringers, end of the world. It'll all come to an end.”

A punch to the shoulder stung. “We come out for a drink on a Saturday and you have to be so goddamn morbid again.”

“Nah, not morbid,” I said with smile. “Just a reminder to enjoy it while it lasts, because it's never going to come again.”

“Man. You need this more than I do.”

I swallowed a mouthful and it warmed my body to the core, spreading to my fingertips. Warm sake on on cool evening, watching the night roll in off the bay with friends, that sounds almost suspiciously like an ideal of heaven to me.

Time to be courageous. Time to trust my friends. Take a deep breath. My Power warmed itself up, acting as backstop to my fuckups, letting me know I could abort if I had to.

“I have a secret,” I said, before swallowing another mouthful of sake. “And it's a really fucked up one.”

Damien didn't miss a beat. “You secretly like Star Trek.”

“Fuck you! Everyone likes Star Trek.”

A hard knuckle to the shoulder made him wince.

“Ow.”

Akiko giggled.

The world may have been doomed, but I didn't want to be anywhere else.

 

I didn’t want it to go away.

\--

The one thing nobody tells you about Leviathan is the sound. A thousand jet engines blowing through a thousand waterfalls all at once. The thunder, the screams, the collapse of a nearby building, even the sound of my own heartbeat in the dark sloshing through water rushing for the emergency door, all of it lost.

Even my mind washed away in a tidal wave of white noise.

Mindless. Thoughtless. Blank with Terror, a tide of pushing bodies carried me up the ramp against the force of rushing water, washing me up onto the kerb.

A gloved hand hauled me to my feet, drawing me to eye level with a black, visored mask. The hand pointed to the shelter's steel blast-door, a flood of water pushing it closed onto the crowd.

“Hold that door!  _ Das ist Ein Befehl!” _

His order rang in my mind as clear as a church bell on Sunday. So I did. I held it against the force of the water, locking my knees against a concrete kerb. I held the door long after the shelter flooded, drowning anyone still trapped inside in churning murk. I held until my knees buckled then gave out and still my mind screamed at me to swim back and hang on, despite the agony. The door slammed shut, breaking the spell, leaving me thrashing for something solid to hang onto as the current grabbed hold.

My world turned to pain, noise,shit, salt and aching cold. Tumbling, scrambling, screaming, gasping, drowning. Naked bloody pain and nothing else kept me awake, sucked feet first through a portal into darkness.

Something hard caught my jacket, pinning my body in place as the water rushed up over my face. Dead after three days, killed by Endbringer.

This is how I die.

Luck took over before this became a short story. My jacket tore. The current carried me through darkened corridors, bashing my body against furniture, doors and railings. Hard edges jabbed, punching the air from my lungs. A gasp for air found only bitter black water, burning my lungs. My body wretched, convulsing, puking, then gasping again.

My arm wrapped around a railing, hauling me over onto my back, cracking my skull off hard concrete stairs. Two clear breaths on my back gave me a flash of hope. Trying to stand up on two ruined legs stole it again.

Agony screamed, leaving me on my back. Black water boiled up, rising past my waist.  carrying shards of debris. Papers. Staplers. Photographs. A cape figurine. A body of a man, face down with his shirt and shoes missing.

That's me in a few minutes.

One single clear impulse filled my mind.

No. No way. I don't want to die. Not here. Not after three days. Not without even knowing  _ why _ this happened. Why I'm here in a place with Endbringers and Capes and Bad Canary on the radio that, three days ago, had been nothing more than words on a page.

Stairs stretched away up to another landing.  If you want to know why this happened. If you want to see tomorrow morning. If you want to take just one more breath. That's what you have to do, if you want to live. Either grit your teeth and crawl, or drown.

I did.

Hand over fucking hand I did it, chased all the way by a rising tide, jamming ice-picks into my knees the entire way up. I crawled it, sick and screaming through four stories until the building hit an outcrop of bedrock and settled.

Over a year later, my legs still ached. They'd never be normal. But I survived.

The noise came back at night, rushing through the pipes in the building, filling the silence and flooding into my mind. The same terror echoed in my thoughts to the racing drumbeat of my heart.

In the darkness, hard edges on furniture mutating into concrete, the shine on the floor turning to liquid water, my skin soaked wet and cold. A glass of water from the kitchen tap didn't quench the pressure in my mind.

It crushed down, every muscle in my body pulling itself tight, screaming to run nowhere. My jaw clench, panting breaths hissing through my teeth. My fists crushed onto the kitchen table edge, grounding out the panic.

My body's charge drained away, leaving me standing with my head pulsing, Power running  at full throttle with nothing to do.

My breathing slowed as I took control, easing back down, feeling more like I'd run for my life, than run to the kitchen.

Energy faded away, leaving me standing sick and empty. Outside, a fire-engine's siren moaned through the street, pulling me back to Brockton Bay. It sounded so different from home.

I slumped onto a sofa.

Only a month to go before I went through it all again. That inexorable force of un-nature would roll in off the sea, and it'd destroy everything familiar all over again. Curling into a ball wouldn't make it go away. Nothing will make it go away. You might as well try and stop a hurricane.

I could only leave.

And still lose everything I had. For the third time.

 

My phone buzzed on my desk, lighting the room up a flaming orange from the screen. I felt a smile cross my  lips. Only one person would message me this late.

 

_ Akiko: “You awake?” _

_ Me: “Weather,” _

_ Akiko: “Me too ^_^;” _

It was that kind of night out.

_ Me: ”Heavy isn’t it?” _

_ Akiko; “Yeah,” _

_ Akiko; “I’m tired.” _

_ Me; “Me too” _

_ Akiko; “Staying up?” _

_ Me; “Until it stops.” _

Both of us wanted to talk about the same thing, but neither of us wanted to be the first, just in case the other didn’t. The Leviathan sat in the room with us, rattling the windows with every gust of wind. Misery loved company. I glanced back at my reflection in the window, being washed down by the rain. Another message buzzed in from Aki… my thumbs typed a quick response.

The wind drummed on the glass. The sound rolled around the room and I found myself feeling damp all over, looking up at the ceiling and expecting the water to cascade in once more. 

 

I couldn’t go down into a shelter when it came back. I didn’t have to go down into a shelter. 

 

I didn’t want to leave the city. I didn’t have to leave the city.

 

The idea came on strong. Still buzzing like a charged battery at 1am, with nothing better to do, I tried on my school project for the first time in months.

It took an hour to untangle the harness, rewind one of the cable spools and realise the batteries had drained themselves. Five month's neglect allowed spots of corrosion to sprout on the frame, dragline cables and relay box. The spool bearings still spun freely, as did the cable runners. Nothing had seized. Both batteries had been drained, one of the relayu  had stuck open and the latch on the storage compartment in the right 'blade'-rack had jammed.

All hard technology, built in a month at school. The battery-packs and van-der-waals clamps had been inspired by Hero, before being researched, analysed, sanitised, diluted then bottled up to be sold through Radioshack a decade after being invented. All the rest, you could build yourself if I gave you the plans.

I am no 'Fucking Tinker'. I am an Engineer. I cannot break the laws of physics, but I do have the Power.

It felt good to wear it.

Powerful.

Heavy.

I stood in front of my bedroom window, legs apart in the traditional pose. A pair of boxes for carrying tools and equipment hung at my side, cantilevered off the harness on my back to sit level. Heavy springs stolen from an attic staircase creaked and squeaked as they kept it all some in some semblance of balance. I took hold of both triggers, trying the buttons with my fingers. Both of them had converted from old 1911 lowers, switches wired up to the grip-safety and trigger, adding another thumbswitch to act as a brake/rewind control, then welding on a brake lever from a bicycle to act as a quick release for whatever attached to where the slide and barrel normally sat. I tried the triggers, being answered by the 'ting' of relays latching behind my back. Both ammeters on my wrists twitched, before centering at zero. Voltmeters twitched before dropping to offscale-low.

A smile scrawled its way across my lips. Reflected in the glass, I saw who I could've been. Maybe if I hadn't read the story, if I'd been a real native, or just that little spark more reckless, I could've done it.

I should’ve done it sooner.

The dog stared at me, thinking, tail tic-tocking

“You think I'm a gobshite, right?”

He scratched himself. Basically, Yes. Maybe, I thought, swallowing a sick lump in my throat.

The dog turned and padded away, nuzzling himself through the bedroom door, I watched his tail disappear, his shadow lingering behind before the door creaked shut, leaving me alone with my own reflection.

Another message from Aki lit my phone up again, setting the reflection on fire. I glanced at it - time to go to bed.

The rain had eased off.

This is my life. It's messy. It's scrappy. It's fucked up and broken at times. But on some deep level below the spark of my Power and beginning of rationalisation it felt  _ right. _

My life here felt like something worth fighting for. Maybe I had gone mad. You're free to offer your own theory.

With over a month to go, three out of four didn’t seem like bad odds. 

\--

My good deed on Friday earned me a note from the mammy, excusing me for the day, due to an obvious injury. The cut on my arm itched, even after the bandages had been replaced. 

“Ani, Hunter, Sparky and Karen.” Andrew handed me a jump drive. “Also have stuff on it from Julia for Cho.”

I checked the running totals on my locker door. “Grand. We're ahead. That leaves Cho in the red.”

“I'll remind her she needs to actually do stuff for people too.” Andrew nudged me in the shoulder. “Look at that. What do you think Sophia's done to her now? Lighter torture?”

I looked over my shoulder. Taylor walked by, scorched and singed around the edges.

“That's fucked up,” I said, trying to hide the smile.

Everything would be okay.

“Unh. And the peckerwoods kicked the shit out of someone up on the third floor on Friday afternoon – some debt thing. At least the Asians won't be dicking around for a while since Lung got nailed.”

I looked at him, remembering a painful lesson I'd gotten months before on American slang.  A pale scar cut between my lip and chin, reminding me of the time I thought 'Peckerwood' was somebody's name.

Pro-tip – it’s not.

“Nah. It just means his Lieutenants go buggo and try break him out. The cycle continues.”

He put a finger to his lips. “Maybe Bakuda will blow up the school?”

I looked around. Paint peeled from walls. One of the tiles on the floor had cracked and lifted, revealing the concrete beneath. Metal cages shielded the lights overhead. Even the windows on ground level had been fitted with bars. 

One of the posters opposite my locker, in five languages, advised Asian students who to go to for help when the ABB came knocking for tribute.

“Where else would they go for recruits?” I said.

“Good point. Catch you later?”

“Detention. Again. Remember?”

“Shit.”

“No sympathy for the devil,” I breathed.

“I’ll catch you later.”

With a few moments to myself in the crowd, I marked May 15 th off on my calendar. A Sunday. Five weeks to go. Enough time to get cold feet again. Enough time to think it through. Time to be sure. Yeah, this is what I want to do. This is how I want to do it.

By rights, I should've started this months ago.

Sophia made her arrival with a bang, trying to catch me off guard with a fist to the door. It worked well enough to pull a smile across her lips, right up until my Power dropped her into deadtime.

“So, you're the one who runs this Mill thing?”

For a moment, she back-footed me, a little tense fizzle running through my body. Getting surprised in Winslow never meant anything good. One moment, bustling corridor, the next a dark-skinned girl half my size had filled my personal space completely.

In one heartbeat, my eyes tracked her from foot to eye. Her eyes really did have that predator intensity to them. I know 'Black Panther' has different connotations in the States than what I really mean – guess how I found that out too - but honestly, that's the first thought that came to mind. Hess had a cat-like leanness to her, the same intensity in her eyes, the same tension right before pouncing.

Right. Time to take control. I stepped back, consigning the last Fifteen seconds to deadtime. It made for just enough time to get myself into the right space for dealing with her. 

I picked my moment. I tried to force myself to be cheerful. I'd worked sales before. This was no different.

“Morning,”

She blinked, caught off guard with her hand in the air, ready to knock the door shut. It took her less the a heartbeat to gather herself. Good. It kept us both on equal footing.

The flash of irritation in her eyes drew a thin grin to my lips.

“I want to know what you were doing with  _ her.” _

She hissed that word through her teeth.

_ “ _ Who the fuck is  _ Her?” _

I already knew. But I wanted to make her to say it.

“Hebert.” Sophia leaned in towards me, trying to dominate my space.

I shrugged, consciously not looking at her. “I gave her a lift home.”

She folded her arms.

“You're trying to get her to join, aren't you?”

“I don't have time for this bollocks.” I said, slamming the door shut. “You know how we work. If you don't like it, that's not my problem.”

She leant back against the locker door, looking down at the floor in front of her, matching me.

“Maybe it's Akiko's,” she said, her voice quiet enough that I had to strain to hear her over the bustle of the corridor. “It'd be a shame if someone found out. That'd  _ ruin _ her future.”

Fuck's sake.

“Somehow, I don't think Princeton will give two dry shites about a week's detention and a slap on the wrist.”

“But a juvie record?”

That caught my attention.

“What do you mean by that?”

She smiled at me. It wasn't a nice smile, more a smug, sneer than anything happy. “You're the smart one, you figure it out.”

Her eyes went to a poster on the noticeboard opposite my locker.

Sophia let the insinuation hang in the air as she turned and left. Bitch, I thought, clenching my fist. Sophia or one of her cronies touts to the authorities, accusing Akiko of being ABB. The story gets backed up by a helpful Ward named  _ Shadow Stalker?   _ By the time the mess gets sorted out, if at all, her life would be ruined

I'd known her for six months. Akiko didn't get involved in things like that.

That set my mind.

\--

Being a teenager is like spending your whole life in that moment in the party where everyone's on a buzz and having a good time and someone decides to say 'Hold my pint and watch this'.

You know it's stupid. But you can't help yourself.

The idea takes hold. It carries you along, and the next thing you know you wake up the next morning to a broken leg and a dozen text messages calling you a fucking moron for trying to jump a bicycle over the canal.

Not that I'd ever done that.

Adding a shard of Scion to the mix had the same effect as adding Red Bull to Vodka.

Beating Taylor to World Affairs meant a full-bore sprint across the school, down a flight of stairs, then back through the crowd bustling around their lockers getting ready. My Power carried me through the crowds, saving me from another broken leg, but not from the thrumming pain in my knees.

My own fault for doing exactly what my physio had told me not to do but it got me there in time to catch her coming down the corridor. She slipped through the crowd, keeping tight clutch on her backpack. A cackle of laughter from a group of girls snapped her head around, ready for the worst. It didn't come – the girls came from another year.

Now, don't take this the wrong way because I don't mean it like that at all, but she looked like prey. She broadcast that edge to the world, like a deer moving in long grass expecting the wolves to jump at any moment. Glancing, verifying, dodging, scanning for where the next attack might come from.

I stepped forward.

“Taylor. We need to talk.”

She stopped. Her eyes stared through me. My skin crawled. Maybe whatever lived on my skin crawled, all in the same direction.

“I hope you don't think I owe you anything for the ride on Friday.”

“No,” I said, forcing myself to smile, stepping in front of her. In hindsight, probably not the best way of forcing her attention. “We talked it through and decided to ask you to join.”

“Why?”

Option One. The usual pitch.

“Because you're pretty good.”

She took a breath.

“You're working with  _ them _ .”

Just a flicker of anger around the word 'them'. A stress on her lips. Otherwise, Taylor kept her calm, her voice steady and even. No prizes for guessing who she meant. I’d done assignment’s with Emma Barnes name on them. 

“We work with anyone.”

That's the rule.

She stepped forward. “And that's your problem.”

“I don't see how.”

“People like you are why people like Sophia, Emma and Madison are able to skate through school. So long as you don't understand that, we have nothing to talk about.” 

On the back foot, my mouth moved first. “You've got it wrong!”

Completely. Her expression darkened.

“No, I don't think....”

To hell with this. Bang. Gone to deadtime. I think I might've preferred the bugs than trying to argue with her. The world folded over itself, dumping me right back to the start.

“Why?” asked Taylor.

A little later than I wanted. Time to run with argument number two; Appeal to cooperation. Gathering my thoughts took a moment, damping down on the lingering simmer of anger.

“Humans are cooperative animals. We're better when we work together. It lets us cover our weaknesses.”

She stopped. Considering? I pushed.

“Like, I'm good at STEM things, but bad at US History or English,” I said, forcing a salesman's smile.“So we all trade the subjects we're good at, for ones we aren't.”

“You're all cheating together.” Her voice remained even, more a statement than an accusation.

“Collaborating,” I corrected.

“So how does  _ she _ fit into it?”

Fuck. I saw the spiral coming. My Power recharged and I triggered it. Back to the start. Alright. If Sophia's the point of pain, why can't I turn that around?

“Why?” Taylor asked, again.

I took a breath.

“Because Sophia got in a strop after seeing me give you a lift yesterday and tried to tell me not to talk to you, because she thought I was asking you to join.”

This time, I had the advantage of telling the truth.

“That sounds pretty dumb.”

Was that a spark of amusement I saw in her eyes?

“Well, yeah. But I don't respond well to being being blackmailed.”

She seemed to listen. Her hands went to her jacket pockets. She took them out a moment later, then looked right through me.

“So. I do this, and she just makes it worse on me,” she said, her voice hardening just a little. “I'm the one who'll pay for it, for standing up to her.”

“That's a fair point.”

My Power latched into place, reminding me that I could restart.

“Girls don't work like guys. You can't just oppose them,” she said. “And  _ you _ can't just beat her half to death and hope to get out of it.”

Yeah, I carried a reputation. You put one arsehole in hospital. Her eyes went to the bandages around my arm, making the obvious conclusion.

“He came at me with a knife.”

I tried not to laugh, but my face betrayed me.

“What's so funny?”

Getting lectured by the queen of escalation herself on using too much force. Oh, she'll learn soon enough, sure she will. 

“I panicked,” I diverted the question. “And I'll never live that down, will I?”

A genuine smile came to my lips.

“No,” she shook her head. She paused, seeming to realise something as the edges of her lips turned slightly up. “And No. I'm out. One thing I promised my dad I'd never do was cheat at school.”

A firm tone told me I had no chance of changing her mind.

“Alright,” I breathed, grasping at the back of my head. “Your call.”

Now, here's the part where I could've gone full arsehole.  could've put on my best Thinker's Grin and oozed out the possibility that Sophia's only causing a problem because of Taylor herself or something to that effect. It might even have worked. I preferred the valiant defeat, with a little mutual respect, over being a complete shitehawk, but getting what I wanted.

Enough had been done to shut the voice in the back of my head up. The pressure eased. That's all the mattered.

The school bell rang, ordering us to class. Taylor ran at a steady jog. I followed with a limp, adjusting the brace on my leg to take more of the weight.

I followed her through the door, only a few seconds beh

“Taylor, Ian,” Gladly looked at us both with the closest thing that amounted to a stern glance he could ever manage. “Any later and I'd have you both written up for a tardy. Take a group.”

Only one remained with two spare seats. Taylor gave me a glance out the side of her eyes, almost accusing me of setting it up.

Honestly, No. Do I look that clever?

The whispers began, rising up from Madison's group.

“Ooh, maybe they were doing it?”

“Of course not, what could anybody see in a complete beanpole like her? He must be blind.”

Sophia gave me a glare that could strip lead paint. I smirked back at her. Greg's backpack snuck up and tripped me.

“See,” Julia giggled as I caught my fall on the desk.

My Power made sure that never happened.

Damo and Akiko waited at a table, with two spare seats. I sat first, slinging my backpack underneath. Taylor glanced at all three of us in turn, then around the room looking for alternatives.

Between Greg, Sparky and Julia – and us – she chose us.

No really, I didn't plan that at all. Do I look like Contessa?

Akiko and Damien looked to me for an explanation. I shrugged. It'd have to wait.

Damien placed a folder on his desk. “So, stuff we talked about last night. What've we got?”

“What a world without Capes would be like,” I said, placing a sheaf of handwritten pages on the table. “ I did the AU history, so we could contrast.”

Basically, home. So I cheated. Sue me. I help run a cheating syndicate.

Akiko skimmed the bullet points. “This is Aleph.”

“Well, yeah, but without any influence from here,”I said. “Like that hurricane in New Orleans or the Japan earthquake. Or the technology differences.”

Taylor sat and listened, marking through her own papers, scratching with a pen.

“That nuclear accident would be a lot worse,” added Akiko, shifting like she sat on a thorn.   “Like I said yesterday, I looked at disaster management. We are better at handling crisis than they are...”

She offered a folder, filled with photographs from Japan. One of a blasted power plant reminded me where I came from.

“But that's not really a cape thing, is it?” asked Damien, leafing through a few of the pictures.

“Aleph does not have  _ them _ . I think it is a Cape thing,” said Akiko, offering sheaves of printed notes. “Even without  _ them _ . Powers work much better in disasters. Look at Panacea?”

Bad example, I thought, with a cringe.

“Wouldn't you hate to be her?” said Damien  “Anyway I looked at Military, like how wars and weapons work.” He added photographs of predator drones, F-22's and other hardware long cancelled or mothballed on  _ Bet.  _ He had missiles. “They'd still have all their nuclear weapons and all their Cold War stuff pointed at each other.”  

“And most of it still works,” I added. For a value of 'works'.

_ “ _ They all go on about the attacks and capes and stuff, but they're the ones still one lazy operator away from global thermonuclear war. And they can't prepare for it because they don't think it's possible. At least we're aware of our threats so we can deal with them.”

Except for the big one, I didn't say. I glanced at Taylor, recalling everything. There sat the person responsible. Skitter. Weaver. Taylor. Khepri. She looked more like a librarian, than anything I'd read about. Last night, she rotted Lungs balls off.

Funny that. A little mouse of fear nipped in the back of my mind. Maybe this time, I'd ruined it all somehow. But, I reminded myself, I decided not to worry about that anymore.

“Law enforcement,” said Taylor, taking it as a cue to speak “With qualified capes handling some of the workload, real cops can train better, and be a lot more versatile .” Taylor offered a thick folder to the desk, easily doubling our pagecount. “I did more, on the tinkertech boom, fashion, cape celebrities.” She looked at myself, and Akiko. “And maybe immigration too.”

All annotated and supported by actual newspaper clippings pinned alongside each paragraph. She even went into detail about how Star Trek VIII differed in each timeline.

“This is good,” said Damien. He turned a page. His eyebrows raised. “Really good.”

She frowned. “I already said I won't join.”

Damien and Akiko looked to me for an explanation.

“Doesn't matter,” I tried to deflect it. “We need to get this yoke together.”

So now, turn it into something that'd win a bar of chocolate. Jump, puppies, jump!

We huddled. We hustled. We bounced ideas off each other. Taylor slipped into the group, rapidly finding her feet in a way that almost felt natural. She chipped in, she countered. We argued. We battered it all together into something truly mighty. We kept going long after we agreed everyone else would've given up.

Not for chocolate. Not for token treats like dogs, but to prove that we could fucking do it regardless. We'd do it with middle fingers raised. Any cabbage could do a shite job and call it a protest. It took real skill to show up the teacher and go places Gladly would never think of.

Maybe Taylor took it as her chance to show the terrible trio up along the way. A little nip in return for the hell they gave her.

When the time came, Greg stumbled and mumbled through his own presentation, before going off on a long tangent about various the differences in the Star Wars prequels and the differences in the origin of the force.

Madison made a better hash of the same presentation. 

A quick game of  _ Jan-Ken-Pon _ elected Taylor to be our unwilling representative. My Power helped me win quick. Hers didn't. She lost fair and square. Unfortunately.

The whispers began as Taylor stepped up.

“Oh they probably just stole ours anyway.” A girl named Shiori giggled.

Well, the fox smells her own hole.

“Quiet please,” said Gladly, his voice barely rising above the chorus.

Sophia simmered. The whispering continued, tickling at the edge of our hearing. Akiko looked at me, blaming me.

Taylor spoke. And kept speaking for a good two minutes longer than any other group had managed.

She stopped. She thanked everyone for listening. She sat down.

“Hasegawa, Hebert, Miller, Sullivan, that was....” Gladly began, stopping to go on a hunt for the right word. Fucking awesome, I didn't say. “...Comprehensive.”

That little flutter of embarrassment made it all worthwhile.

Next group. They took half the time to hit a quarter of the points.

Gladly, for all the fandom and the student body hated him, kept to his word. Really, we just wanted to make him spend his own money. Not like dogs begging for treats.

Not at all.

They have these things in America called  _ Reese's Pieces _ that're like crack in orange packets. Don't try them unless you like selling your soul to a higher power for a little ball of peanut butter in a shell. All while being congratulated on a job well done.

What?

Quinlan wouldn't be as kind about us showing up late, so I left everyone getting theirs.

“Ian,” Taylor's voice said, behind me.

“Yeah,” I stopped, waiting for her to catch up.

She stopped, less than a foot away from me. The scent of coconut shampoo tickled my nostrils, mingling with the unmistakable ashy smell of singed hair.

Did I put too much bodyspray on this morning, I wondered? Where did that come from?

“I won't have anything to do with you assholes. The answer's No.” She stared right through me, almost making me believe it. “So leave me alone before I tell Gladly how you do it.”

Standing two doors way, Sophia's eyes went wide. I caught the plan immediately.

“Well, fuck you very much then!”

And I said it with a smile. Thanks.

I think.

\--

My right knee throbbed, the pain following me to the school canteen. It crawled up the bone, pulsing with each step. Trying to walk straight-kneed numbed the worst of it, but not all.

Thanks, Leviathan. I could've done without the reminder, thank you.

It slowed me up getting to the queue. It hamstrung me, trying to cross the canteen floor.

Damian slapped his tray down beside be me, sending a quick shock through my body. 

“You actually asked Taylor to join?”

“Sophia saw me give her a lift yesterday and jumped to conclusions. I showed her I wouldn't be blackmailed.”

No big deal.

He took a breath, sitting back in “Man, you keep doing things like that you'll have problems.”

“You told me...”

“Yeah well,” he caught it. “You got to balance it. Some people you stand up to, just so everyone knows you're not a complete pushover.” He paused.“ But some people are just too dangerous to fuck with.”

“I can handle Sophia,” I said, before sipping from a carton of Froot Joose.

He gave me a dubious look, thinking about it as he twirled a spork in his 'mash potato'. “I don't know. She has something on the school. You got suspended for a month for self-defense. She got a slap on the wrist for the locker thing. And that was  _ sickening _ . I could smell it on the second floor.”.

“I can handle her,” I said again. My Power rose in the back of my mind.

He took a breath – looking away for a moment. My mind’s hand clasped my Power tight, ready to make it all dissolve to dead time if it had to.

“Look, man, so I'll say this. _You can’t keep doing this shit,”_ He stared, right through me. “The only reason the ABB didn't retaliate over the guy you broke is because he wasn't a full member yet.” He paused, just letting it sink in. “They would've fucking _hurt_ you for a stunt like that.” 

I sat back, feeling a prickling unease crawl up my spine. My eyes glanced around.  Some of the gangs stood out – the ones who wanted you to know. The rest dissolved into a thousand bodies, trying to have what passed for a meal.

To the point where I started second guessing myself, even about some people I knew. Maybe?

“You've been here long enough to think you know it, but you really don't. Not yet. It took Aki' years to find her way.”

I couldn't disagree. I sat forward, resting my face in my hands for a moment, waiting for my head to clear.

“This place is fucked up,” I managed to say.

“Well, You keep picking fights with people it’ll fuck you up. You’ll end up lying in a pool of your own blood.”

That nearly happened to us both. I saw the worry in his eyes - probably that I’d drag him down with me. My Power leant on my thoughts, for want of a better phrase.

Maybe if I told him. I amn’t being a moron, I just have a different perspective. Things wouldn’t end up so poisoned. 

“I know Sophia.” I said, with as much assurance as I could muster. “I know what her thing is.”

He blinked. “What?”

I breathed, trying to suppress the Vulpine Grin that had to be common to anyone with a Power that let them  _ know.  _ “I figured it out last Thursday.”

“Fuck!” His hands slammed on the table, drawing every set of eyes in.

“Yeah,” I breathed, feeling just a little quiver of unease. 

He leant right over, the both of us suddenly aware that everyone could hear. My Power begged me to make it go away - to never happen. To never take the risk in the first place. 

“You know what happens if people even talk about knowing that?” he hissed, skin turning white. “I mean, how?”  He took a moment to gather himself. “How’d you find out?”

My Power loomed in the back of my mind. I swallowed the fear and I told him the truth, pushing through it despite the pressure in the back of my head. 

“The same way, I knew if we tried to run away, those lads would’ve chased us.” He sat back, giving me space.”Or the fella I put in the hospital with the extinguisher - how I knew he had the knife….”

“What…”

I saw the look on his face and I had to stop. Fear. Like I’d grow a second head that would loom over the table and eat him whole. 

At the last instant, I chickened out. I used my Power to undo the whole goddamned lot, leaving me still sitting there with that strange sense of lingering guilt and unease, and him looking through me with that same fear.

He blinked, again. “What?”

Fuck.

I should’ve followed through. My Power danced in the back of my mind, relieved it hadn’t been revealed. I hated it for it.

But I could also try again.

I gathered my thoughts, filling the silence.  “I can handle meself,” I said, calmly. “I really can.”

That’s how I pronounced it, ‘Meself’. 

He looked confused for a moment, taking a hard mental gearshift before catching up. I couldn’t place where the conversation had broken - maybe it’d dropped a little  later than I tought. 

Damien looked right through me, almost looking disappointed that I hadn’t figured it out. Another one doomed to die in a pool of their own blood “You  _ think _ you can…”

My hand found a coin in my pocket, I turned.  Time to try again.

“Can I show you something?”

“Your knife?”

“Just give me a minute.” I held up my hand, feeling that thrill of anxiety, my Power pulsing in time with my heart. “You wanted to know how I always know.”

I showed him a coin - a shiny quarter dollar from Massachusets.   


 

“Call it? Heads or tales.”

 

His mouth opened. His breath caught.

“Just trust me.” Time to put it on the line.

“Alright,” he breathed, not looking convinced. “Heads.”

In the back of my mind, I realised I’d already gone too far. I couldn’t just wipe this away - without things being even worse. I’d created too many questions. I flipped the coin. Tails. 

His arms folded. He didn’t look impressed.

On my second try, it came up heads.

He watched that coin come up heads or tails as he called it, time and time again. As he saw it, I must’ve hit thirteen straight calls. I think I made a total of twenty attempts, but I didn’t bother counting. The penny dropped at thirteen. I watched the realisation wash across his face and let the coin hit the table, a rush of excitement racing up through me. 

“That’s how I knew if we tried to run away, those lads would’ve chased us. Or the fella I put in the hospital with the extinguisher - how I knew he had the knife, because he stabbed me…. Or every other fight.”

I amn’t being a fucking moron mate. 

“You’re…”  The words died in his mouth. 

“Yeah.” I nodded. “I’m one of the tomatoes.”

“Holy shit,” he breathed, settling back into his chair.

He looked at me. He looked at the ceiling. He looked around, as if he expected the roof to collapse in, and an army of superheroes to arrive and whisk me away to parts unknown now that the secrete had come out. 

“Yeah,” I smirked.

“Holy shit,” he said again.

“Yeah,” I said again. “Don’t tell anyone,” I added, with a chuckle in my throat.

Meanwhile, the cafeteria passed us by, completely oblivious. 

\--

The first time my phone rang, I ignored it. Both my hands were full trying to regenerate the Gramme filters. Yes,  _ that  _ Gramme. The filters formed part of the wastewater recovery and purification system, something the law required us to have.

The phone rang again, five minutes later. I glanced at it.

Akiko.

Why would she call me at work?

I caught it on the last ring.

“Yeah.”

“What did she say?”

If she could've grabbed me through the phone, she would've.

“Nothing much,” I tried to deflect it.

“What. Did. She. Say?”

Her voice pulled tight, a twinge of fear biting at my ear. I went with the truth, expecting an angry denial.

“She'd go to the cops and frame you for being in the ABB.”

Silence. The worst answer she could've given me. 

“I see,” she finally said, all the colour gone from her voice.

The phone line went dead. I stared down at the green screen. The pieces slipped into place and I knew without her telling me. I bet you're fucking smiling for figuring it out before me. You can even give me that golfclap, if it makes you feel better.

My mind grasped my Power and triggered it, letting time fold back around me. Nothing else seemed appropriate.

“She told me she'd blow the entire Mill out of the water. So I called her bluff.”

“That's okay.” I heard the relief. I heard the smile and it stabbed. “If she does that, she will make enemies.”

“Yeah. She's just blowing steam.”

“Fine. We'll talk tomorrow.  _ Ja ne,” _

_ “ _ Later.”

Click. The phone went back into my pocket and I swallowed the urge to break something expensive. 

I lied. Shoot me. I felt like a shitehawk for it. But I couldn't let her go through with telling that. I can't change it. I can't unlearn it. I can't forget. But I can let her live without ever having to tell me.

My best friend thinks I'm going to get hurt. My other friend has been a member of the fucking ABB all along. And I have five weeks to get ready before it all gets washed away anyway.

The oulfella noticed the expression on my face immediately.

“Bad news?”

“Just learned something about a friend of mine that I wish I didn't know.”

“Whatever it is, I'm sure it doesn't change who they are.”

I think he expected something else entirely - the usual teenage shite and not this.

“Yeah,” I breathed, not looking up at him. “It doesn't.”

It just meant a friend of mine could either get frozen in time, dissolved like the wicked witch, warped into grotesque fucking monster of a thing or worse at the whim of some mad yoke who's just been pissed off. But it didn't change who she was. Not at all.

That's not fucking right. How in the name of God did  _ she  _ end up in a gang? Someone like that?

“Well, get back to work. We're short for the week.”

Not now John, we gotta get on with this. It kept me from thinking about it. Not really. But I managed.

\--


	4. "Doing the Wrong Thing for the Right Reasons"

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■  


**♦The state of play in Brockton Bay Pt 3**

**In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay**

**(Showing Page 301 of 301)**

**►Lib1rn** (Original Poster)

Posted on September 13th, 2010:

 

Since the Previous thread's topped 500.

Keeping everyone in the know. People's lives might depend on what you post. So keep that in mind before you hit send.

 

**► Herriot**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

  


This whole Lung getting captured thing has really upset the apple cart we all knew. Three days ago two [slurs] knocked in asking for their monthly protection.

This morning two crackers  knock on the door and tell me I’m part of the Empire now and they want their pound of flesh before the end of the week, to get on the right side before the Day of the Rope comes to Brockton.  

This is fucking ridiculous.

_(User Warned for this post. Comment by Judge: Really? I get the frustration, but keep it civil)_

 

**► General Antagonist**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

 

Not sure which is worse.

Not sure if the ABB aren’t going to come out like a cornered rat.

 

**► Binkadocious**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

 

With what?

2 capes. One that just sorta appears to follow orders and one whos sole claim to fame is a bomb threat in Princeton. Face it, without Lung, they’re really nobody.

What does the Empire have? Empire’ll win.

 

**► BayFresk**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

 

Wait and see.

Something funny’s been happening with my Japanese neighbours.

 

**► Binkadocious**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

 

Like What?

 

**► BayFresk**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

 

A week ago, you could set your watch by them. .

Then they go missing. Come back at strange hours in the day sort of thing. Like, they were missing all last night but their teenage kid was home, and then there’s a lot of shit happened late last night. Lots of weird noises

Anybody else have neighbours?

 

**► Binkadocious**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

 

Y’see. There’s your problem. They got teenagers. And you know what teenagers do when their parents are away

 

**End of Page. 301 of 301,**

\--

 

\--

**♦One year on**

**In: Boards ► Places ► Europe ► Ireland ► After Hours**

**►MegaGurrier** (Ar Bhain na Muice)(Moderatoir)

Posted on February 10th, 2011:

 

So. It’s been a year since that day.

How’s everyone doing?

Same rules apply.

**(Showing Page 22 of 40)**

 

**► Stocious_One** (Sued by Denis O’Brien)

Replied on March 14, 2011:

 

The Bang Bang's back in action. For better or worse. Things are getting back to normal. A sort of clean and shiny normal.

Still. No Hairy Lemon. Who'll look after the dog's now?

 

**►Dad_Zebra** (Still Alive….)

Replied on March 14, 2011:

 

The character of the city’s been gutted, drowned under the muck and filth. All that’s replacing it is thick steel and sheer glass just like every other city the world over.

Sure it’s ‘Dublin’

But it’s not mine.

I don’t recognise this place at all anymore. It could be any European city built out of my dirty old town

 

**► Small_Far_Away** (On Craggy Island)

Replied on March 14, 2011:

 

Well, what the fuck do you expect? The whole fucking thing’s beneath a couple of hundred yards of muck

What were we supposed to do?

Dig it all up?

Plough it to green fields and let Cork be the bloody capital?

Build some twee American-style image of what the city used to be? A carbon copy in fake red-brick?

Get some cop on why don’t you?

It’ll never be the town we grew up in. So what? The town we grew up in was destroyed. The rest of the world can put up with it, why can’t we? Why do the Irish always have to put on the poor mouth?

 

**► Dorchas**

Replied on March 14, 2011:

_ >>city built out of my dirty old town _

 

"Ring a Ring a Rosie, as the Light Declines

I temember Dublin City in the Rare Aul Times"

 

**► Muir Eireannach(** Cold. Grey)

Replied on March 14, 2011:

 

Not this again….

If it bothers you that much Just wait a few months, the scumbags and the knacklets will fuck it all up again. Sure, Broombridge has already been burnt out.

 

**► TweeTwee** (Brewmaster)

Replied on March 14, 2011:

 

I miss Ryans pub. I’m tearing up just thinking about it. When you step outide and the smell of roast barley from the brewery across the river. We’d drop in for a pint coming off shift with the rest of the team and it’d just be hopping.

All the great boozers are gone.

 

**► Padraig_O_Lostaigh** (Pintman)

Replied on March 14, 2011:

 

Mulligans is still open

 

**► TweeTwee** (Brewmaster)

Replied on March 14, 2011:

 

There is no Temple Bar anymore, how is there a Mulligans?

 

**► Padraig_O_Lostaigh** (Pintman)

Replied on March 14, 2011:

 

Not the tourist trap kip. Up in Stoneybatter. The last true pub in Dublin.

 

**►DurtBurd** (Blast it with Piss)

Replied on March 14, 2011:

 

The Brazen Head just opened up again. Looks well done on the inside too. Not too modern, not to overdone and the pint’s right.

 

**► Dad_Zebra** (Still Alive…. )

Replied on March 14, 2011:

It’s not the original. We played an Ars Magica game in the old one once. All the PC’s met up in the exact same pub, 800 years ago. At the same table.

You can’t do that now.

 

**End of Page. 22 of 40,** **> >**

 

\--

 

\--

 

**♦** **Topic: My Friend Just came out to me**

**In: Boards** **►** **Places** **►** **America** **►** **Brockton Bay** **►** **Help**

**BBThrowaway95** (Original Poster)

Posted on April 11, 2011:

 

Throwaway because I know how sensitive some people can be about these things.

A friend of mine came out to me today. Just seemed to force himself to say it out of nowhere. Like, Bam. I have a Power

It makes a lot of stuff make sense. I'd been thinking something was a little strange. He never really seems to get caught out by shit, dodging at the last minute or slipping out. I mean, there's things you just can't get out of I know but he always seemed to know it was coming.

How the fuck are you supposed to talk about shit like this?

That scares the shit out of me because he's always getting into fucking fights with people. Some guys snuck up on him at school and he put the one with a knife in hospital. The school just assumed he'd seen him draw it and called it self defense. A coupla nights ago someone tried to mug us on the street and he knew it before it happened. He drew a knife and managed to put one of them down before Shadow Stalker showered up and ended it.

On the one hand, it's kinda cool that I've met someone who has a power and on the other I'm sitting here wondering if he's been using it on my the entire time. There's something about it that feels a little skeevy, like I've been lied to the entire time I knew him.

I just want to know what the fuck do do. I don't want to see another friend getting in way over their heads making a bad decision. And I don't really want to lose a friendship either. But if I do nothing, it's only a matter of time before he gets caught by the wrong person and then it gets messy.  Either he goes to far too quick or one of the local heavy hitters takes an interest,

Any advice?

_[Note from Judge:  Okay. Given the likely subject matter I'm placing all your posts in this thread on moderated for the time being. I know you mean well. It will just give me time to edit anything that might potentially out our young friend's identity and keep everyone safe.]_

 

**(Showing Page 1 of 1)**

 

**►** **The Fake Kid Win**  (Verified Cape)

Replied on April 11, 2011:

 

One of Us! One of Us! One of Us!

We don't bite.

Let Him know he's welcome   **Boards** **►** **America** **►** **Brockton Bay** **►** **Teams** **►** **W-ENE.** We can chat. In public or Private.

 

**►** **Laser Augment**

Replied on April 11, 2011:

 

I'm going to assume you're probably a teenager. And if 'some guys' snuck up on you with a knife I can guess what school you go to too. You have my sympathies, kiddo.

He's placed a lot of trust in you by talking to you. He wouldn't do that if he thought you would do wrong by him. It sounds like you might even be the first person he's been able to work up the courage to talk to.

 

**►** **Judge**  (Moderator) (Veteran Member)

Replied on April 11, 2011:

 

Sounds like your friend has a solid Thinker Power. Maybe precog?

Young people especially are vulnerable to being negatively influenced or used by others as their Powers emerge.

The best thing you can do, is tell him to go to the local PRT office were he can be assessed for suitability for the Wards, Or just meet people trained in giving guidance to young people in living with their powers, if he isn't interested in donning the cape. They can protect young Parahumans, even ones who don't want to join.  They provide Codenames. Records. Backup. Protection.

Even counselling if needs be.

It's the best deal out there.

 

**End of Page.**

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally inspired by "Security!"
> 
> Correction work by Bluerose and 6thfloormadness - along with half of SB, a quarter of SV and the ToyBox


End file.
